.^ 


Ml  1 


THE  CREATES 
ENGLISH  CLASSIC 

A    STUDY    OF    THE 
KING    JAMES    VERSION    OF    THE    BIBLE 
AND    ITS    INFLUENCE    ON    LIFE  ' 

AND   LITERATURE 

BY 
CLELAND  BOYD  McAFEE,  D.D. 

author  op 

"the  growing  church"  "mosaic  law  in  modern  life" 

"studies  in  the  sermon  on  the  mount" 


OCT: 


HARPER  6-  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

NEW  YORK  AND   LONDON 

MCMXII 


COPYRIGHT.    1912.    BY    HARPER    8.    BROTHERS 

PRINTED   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES   OF   AMERICA 

PUBLISHED    MAY.    1912 


CONTENTS 


LECTURE  PAGE 

Preface      v 

I.  Preparing    the  Way — The  English   Bible   Before 

King  James 1 

II.  The    Making    of    the    King    James    Version;    Its 

Characteristics 44 

III.  The  King  James  Version  as  English  Literature  89 

IV.  The   Influence    of   the   King   James    Version   on 

Engijsh  Literature 130 

V.  The  King  James  Version — Its  Influence  on  Eng- 

lish and  American  History 195 

VI.  The  Bible  in  the  Life  of  To-day 241 


PREFACE 

THE  lectures  included  in  this  volume  were 
prepared  at  the  request  of  the  Brooklyn 
Institute  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  and  were  de- 
livered in  the  early  part  of  1912,  under  its 
auspices.  They  were  suggested  by  the  tercente-' 
nary  of  the  King  James  version  of  the  Bible.  The 
plan  adopted  led  to  a  restatement  of  the  history 
which  prepared  for  the  version,  and  of  that  which 
produced  it.  It  was  natural  next  to  point  out  its 
principal  characteristics  as  a  piece  of  literature. 
Two  lectures  followed,  noting  its  influence  on  lit- 
erature and  on  history.  The  course  closed  with 
a  statement  and  argument  regarding  the  place 
of  the  Bible  in  the  life  of  to-day. 

The  reception  accorded  the  lectures  at  the  time 
of  their  public  delivery,  and  the  discussion  which 
ensued  upon  some  of  the  points  raised,  encourage 
the  hope  that  they  may  be  more  widely  useful. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  assign  to  Dr.  Franklin  W. 

Hooper,  director  of  the  Institute,  whatever  credit 

the  work  may  merit.     Certainly  it  would  not 

have  been  undertaken  without  his  kindly  urgency. 

Cleland  Boyd  McAfee. 

Brooklyn.  New  York,  May,  1912. 


THE  GREATEST  ENGLISH  CLASSIC 


THE    GREATEST 
ENGLISH    CLASSIC 


LECTURE  I 

PREPARING    THE    WAY — THE    ENGLISH    BIBLE 
BEFORE   KING   JAMES 

nPHERE  are  three  great  Book  -  religions — 
-■-  JudaisrQ,  Christianity,  and  Mohammedan- 
ism. Other  rehgions  have  their  sacred  writings, 
but  they  do  not  hold  them  in  the  same  regard  as 
do  these  three.  Buddhism  and  Confucianism 
count  their  books  rather  records  of  their  faith 
than  rules  for  it,  history  rather  than  authorita- 
tive sources  of  belief.  The  three  great  Book- 
religions  yield  a  measure  of  authoiity  to  their 
sacred  books  which  would  be  utterly  foreign  to 
the  thought  of  other  faiths. 

Yet  among  the  three  named  are  two  very  dis- 
tinct attitudes.     To  the  Mohammedan  the  lan- 
guage as  well  as  the  matter  of  the  Koran  is 
1  1 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

sacred.  He  will  not  permit  its  translation.  Its 
original  Arabic  is  the  only  authoritative  tongue 
in  which  it  can  speak.  It  has  been  translated 
into  other  tongues,  but  always  by  adherents  of 
other  faiths,  never  by  its  own  believers.  The 
Hebrew  and  the  Christian,  on  the  other  hand, 
but  notably  the  Christian,  have  persistently 
sought  to  make  their  Bible  speak  all  languages  at 
all  times. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  a  Book  written  in  one 
tongue  should  have  come  to  its  largest  power  in 
other  languages  than  its  own.  The  Bible  means 
more  to-day  in  German  and  French  and  English 
than  it  does  in  Hebrew  and  Chaldaic  and  Greek — 
more  even  than  it  ever  meant  in  those  languages. 
There  is  nothing  just  like  that  in  literary  history. 
It  is  as  though  Shakespeare  should  after  a  while 
become  negligible  for  most  readers  in  English, 
and  be  a  master  of  thought  in  Chinese  and  Hin- 
dustani, or  in  some  language  yet  unborn. 

We  owe  this  persistent  effort  to  make  the  Bible 
speak  the  language  of  the  times  to  a  conviction 
that  the  particular  language  used  is  not  the 
great  thing,  that  there  is  something  in  it  which 
gives  it  power  and  value  in  any  tongue.  No  book 
was  ever  translated  so  often.  Men  who  have 
known  it  in  its  earliest  tongues  have  realized  that 
their    fellows    would    not    learn    these    earliest 

2 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

tongues,  and  they  have  set  out  to  make  it  speak 
the  tongue  their  fellows  did  know.  Some  have 
protested  that  there  is  impiety  in  making  it 
speak  the  current  tongue,  and  have  insisted  that 
men  should  learn  the  earliest  speech,  or  at  least 
accept  their  knowledge  of  the  Book  from  those 
who  did  know  it.  But  they  have  never  stopped 
the  movement.     They  have  only  delayed  it. 

The  first  movement  to  make  the  Scripture 
speak  the  current  tongue  appeared  nearly  three 
centuries  before  Christ.  Most  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment then  existed  in  Hebrew.  But  the  Jews  had 
scattered  widely.  Many  had  gathered  in  Egypt 
where  Alexander  the  Great  had  founded  the  city 
that  bears  his  name.  At  one  time  a  third  of  the 
population  of  the  city  was  Jewish.  Many  of 
the  people  were  passionately  loyal  to  their  old 
religion  and  its  Sacred  Book.  But  the  current 
tongue  there  and  through  most  of  the  civilized 
world  was  Greek,  and  not  Hebrew.  As  always, 
there  were  some  who  felt  that  the  Book  and  its 
original  language  were  inseparable.  Others  re- 
vealed the  disposition  of  which  we  spoke  a  mo- 
ment ago,  and  set  out  to  make  the  Book  speak 
the  current  tongue.  For  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  the  work  went  on,  and  what  we  call  the 
Septuagint  was  completed.  There  is  a  pretty 
little  story  which  tells  how  the  version  got  its 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

name,  which  means  the  Seventy  —  that  King 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  interested  in  collecting  all 
sacred  books,  gathered  seventy  Hebrew  scholars, 
sent  them  to  the  island  of  Pharos,  shut  them  up 
in  seventy  rooms  for  seventy  days,  each  making 
a  translation  from  the  Hebrew  into  the  Greek. 
When  they  came  out,  behold,  their  translations 
were  all  exactly  alike !  Several  difficulties  appear 
in  that  story,  one  of  which  is  that  seventy  men 
should  have  made  the  same  mistakes  without 
depending  on  each  other.  In  addition,  it  is  not 
historically  supported,  and  the  fact  seems  to  be 
that  the  Septuagint  was  a  long  and  slow  growth, 
issuing  from  the  impulse  to  make  the  Sacred 
Book  speak  the  familiar  tongue.  And,  though 
it  was  a  Greek  translation,  it  virtually  displaced 
the  original,  as  the  English  Bible  has  virtually 
displaced  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  to-day.  The 
Septuagint  was  the  Old  Testament  which  Paul 
used.  Of  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  direct 
quotations  from  the  Old  Testament  in  the  New 
nearly  all  are  from  the  Greek  version — from  the 
translation,  and  not  from  the  original. 

We  owe  still  more  to  translation.  While  there 
is  accumulating  evidence  that  there  was  spoken 
in  Palestine  at  that  time  a  colloquial  Greek,  with 
which  most  people  would  be  familiar,  it  is  yet 
probable  that   our  Lord   spoke   neither   Greek 

4 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

nor  Hebrew  currently,  but  Aramaic.  He  knew 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  of  course,  as  any  well- 
trained  lad  did;  but  most  of  His  words  have  come 
down  to  us  in  translation.  His  name,  for  ex- 
ample, to  His  Hebrew  mother,  was  not  Jesus,  but 
Joshua;  and  Jesus  is  the  translation  of  the  Hebrew 
Joshua  into  Greek.  We  have  His  words  as  they 
were  translated  by  His  disciples  into  the  Greek, 
in  which  the  New  Testament  was  originally 
written. 

By  the  time  the  writing  of  the  New  Testament 
was  completed,  say  one  hundred  years  after 
Christ,  while  Greek  was  still  current  speech,  the 
Roman  Empire  was  so  dominant  that  the  com- 
mon people  were  talking  Latin  almost  as  much 
as  Greek,  and  gradually,  because  political  power 
was  behind  it,  the  Latin  gained  on  the  Greek, 
and  became  virtually  the  speech  of  the  common 
people.  The  movement  to  make  the  Bible  talk 
the  language  of  the  time  appeared  again.  It  is 
impossible  to  say  now  when  the  first  translations 
into  Latin  were  made.  Certainly  there  were 
some  within  two  centuries  after  Christ,  and  by 
250  A.D.  a  whole  Bible  in  Latin  was  in  circu- 
lation in  the  Roman  Empire.  The  translation 
of  the  New  Testament  was  from  the  Greek,  of 
course,  but  so  was  that  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  the  Latin  versions  of  the  Old  Testa- 

5 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

ment  were,  therefore,  translations  of  a  transla- 
tion. 

There  were  so  many  of  these  versions,  and 
they  were  so  unequal  in  value,  that  there  was 
natural  demand  for  a  Latin  translation  that 
should  be  authoritative.  So  came  into  being 
what  we  call  the  Vulgate,  whose  very  name  in- 
dicates the  desire  to  get  the  Bible  into  the  vulgar 
or  common  tongue.  Jerome  began  by  revising 
the  earlier  Latin  translations,  but  ended  by  going 
back  of  all  translations  to  the  original  Greek, 
and  back  of  the  Septuagint  to  the  original  Hebrew 
wherever  he  could  do  so.  Fourteen  years  he 
labored,  settling  himself  in  Bethlehem,  in  Pales- 
tine, to  do  his  work  the  better.  Barely  four 
hundred  years  (404  a.d.)  after  the  birth  of 
Christ  his  Latin  version  appeared.  It  met  a 
storm  of  protest  for  its  effort  to  go  back  of 
the  Septuagint,  so  dominant  had  the  translation 
become.  Jerome  fought  for  it,  and  his  version 
won  the  day,  and  became  the  authoritative  Latin 
translation  of  the  Bible. 

For  seven  or  eight  centuries  it  held  its  sway 
as  the  current  version  nearest  to  the  tongue  of 
the  people.  Latin  had  become  the  accepted 
tongue  of  the  church.  There  was  little  general 
culture,  there  was  little  general  acquaintance 
with    the   Bible    except    among    the    educated. 

6 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

During  all  that  time  there  was  no  real  room  for 
a  further  translation.  One  of  the  writers'  says: 
"Medieval  England  was  quite  unripe  for  a  Bible 
in  the  mother  tongue;  while  the  illiterate  ma- 
jority were  in  no  condition  to  feel  the  want  of 
such  a  book,  the  educated  minority  would  be 
averse  to  so  great  and  revolutionary  a  change." 
When  a  man  cannot  read  any  writing  it  really 
does  not  matter  to  him  whether  books  are  in 
current  speech  or  not,  and  the  majority  of  the 
people  for  those  seven  or  eight  centuries  could 
read  nothing  at  all.  Those  who  could  read  any- 
thing were  apt  to  be  able  to  read  the  Latin. 

These  centuries  added  to  the  conviction  of 
many  that  the  Bible  ought  not  to  become  too 
common,  that  it  should  not  be  read  by  every- 
body, that  it  required  a  certain  amount  of  learn- 
ing to  make  it  safe  reading.  They  came  to  feel 
that  it  is  as  important  to  have  an  authoritative 
interpretation  of  the  Bible  as  to  have  the  Bible 
itself.  When  the  movement  began  to  make  it 
speak  the  new  English  tongue,  it  provoked  the 
most  violent  opposition.  Latin  had  been  good 
enough  for  a  millennium;  why  cheapen  the  Bible 
by  a  translation?  There  had  grown  up  a  feeling 
that  Jerome  himself  had  been  inspired.  He  had 
been  canonized,  and  half  the  references  to  him 

» Hoare,  Evolution  of  ike  English  Bible,  p.  39. 

7 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

in  that  time  speak  of  him  as  the  inspired  trans- 
lator. Criticism  of  his  version  was  counted  as 
impious  and  profane  as  criticisms  of  the  original 
text  could  possibly  have  been.  It  is  one  of  the 
ironies  of  history  that  the  version  for  which 
Jerome  had  to  fight,  and  which  was  counted  a 
piece  of  impiety  itself,  actually  became  the 
ground  on  which  men  stood  when  they  fought 
\  against  another  version,  counting  anything  else 
but  this  very  version  an  impious  intrusion! 

How  early  the  movement  for  an  English  Bible 
began,  it  is  impossible  now  to  say.  Certainly 
just  before  700  a.d.,  that  first  singer  of  the  Eng- 
lish tongue,  Csedmon,  had  learned  to  paraphrase 
the  Bible.  We  may  recall  the  Venerable  Bede's 
charming  story  of  him,  and  how  he  came  by  his 
power  of  interpretation.  Bede  himself  was  a 
child  when  Csedmon  died,  and  the  romance  of 
the  story  makes  it  one  of  the  finest  in  our  litera- 
ture. Csedmon  was  a  peasant,  a  farm  laborer 
in  Northumbria  working  on  the  lands  of  the  great 
Abbey  at  Whitby.  Already  he  had  passed  mid- 
dle life,  and  no  spark  of  genius  had  flashed  in 
him.  He  loved  to  go  to  the  festive  gatherings 
and  hear  the  others  sing  their  improvised  poems; 
but,  when  the  harp  came  around  to  him  in  due 
course,  he  would  leave  the  room,  for  he  could  not 
sing.     One   night   when   he   had   slipped   away 

8 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

from  the  group  in  shame  and  had  made  his 
rounds  of  the  horses  and  cattle  under  his  care, 
he  fell  asleep  in  the  stable  building,  and  heard 
a  voice  in  his  sleep  bidding  him  sing.  When  he 
declared  he  could  not,  the  voice  still  bade  him 
sing.  "What  shall  I  sing?"  he  asked.  "Sing 
the  first  beginning  of  created  things."  And 
the  words  came  to  him;  and,  still  dreaming,  he 
sang  his  first  hymn  to  the  Creator.  In  the 
morning  he  told  his  story,  and  the  Lady  Abbess 
found  that  he  had  the  divine  gift.  The  monks 
had  but  to  translate  to  him  bits  of  the  Bible 
out  of  the  Latin,  which  he  did  not  imderstand, 
into  his  familiar  Anglo-Saxon  tongue,  and  he 
1/  would  cast  it  into  the  rugged  Saxon  measures 
which  could  be  sung  by  the  common  people. 
So  far  as  we  can  tell,  it  was  so  that  the  Bible 
story  became  current  in  Anglo-Saxon  speech. 
Bede  himself  certainly  put  the  Gospel  of  John 
into  Anglo-Saxon.  At  the  Bodleian  Library,  at 
Oxford,  there  is  a  manuscript  of  nearly  twenty 
thousand  lines,  the  metrical  version  of  the 
Gospel  and  the  Acts,  done  near  1250  by  an 
Augustinian  monk  named  Orm,  and  so  called 
the  Ormulum.  There  were  other  metrical  ver- 
sions of  various  parts  of  the  Bible.  Mid- 
way between  Bede  and  Orm  came  Lang- 
land's  poem,  "  The  Vision  of  Piers  Plowman," 

9 


u 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

which  paraphrased  so  much  of  the  Script- 
ure. 

Yet  the  fact  is  that  until  the  last  quarter  of 
the  fourteenth  century  there  was  no  prose  ver- 
sion of  the  Bible  in  the  English  language.  In- 
deed, there  was  only  coming  to  be  an  English 
language.  It  was  gradually  emerging,  taking 
definite  shape  and  form,  so  that  it  could  be  dis- 
tinguished from  the  earlier  Norman  French, 
Saxon,  and  Anglo-Saxon,  in  which  so  much  of 
it  is  rooted. 

As  soon  as  the  language  grew  definite  enough, 
/  it  was  inevitable  that  two  things  should  come 
to  pass.  First,  that  some  men  would  attempt 
to  make  a  colloquial  version  of  the  Bible;  and, 
secondly,  that  others  would  oppose  it.  One  can 
count  with  all  confidence  on  these  two  groups 
of  men,  marching  through  history  like  the 
animals  into  the  ark,  two  and  two.  Some  men 
propose,  others  oppose.  They  are  built  on 
those  lines. 

VWe  are  more  concerned  with  the  men  who  made 
the  versions;  but  we  must  think  a  moment  of 
the  others.  One  of  his  contemporaries,  Knigh- 
ton, may  speak  for  all  in  his  saying  of  Wiclif, 
that  he  had,  to  be  sure,  translated  the  Gospel 
into  the  Anglic  tongue,  but  that  it  had  thereby 
been  made  vulgar  by  him,  and  more  open  to  the 

10 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

reading  of  laymen  and  women  than  it  usually 
is  to  the  knowledge  of  lettered  and  intelligent 
clergy,  and  "thus  the  pearl  is  cast  abroad  and 
trodden  under  the  feet  of  swine";  and,  that  we 
may  not  be  in  doubt  who  are  the  swine,  he  adds : 
"The  jewel  of  the  Church  is  turned  into  the 
common  sport  of  the  people." 

But  two  strong  impulses  drive  thoughtful 
men  to  any  effort  that  will  secure  wide  knowledge 
of  the  Bible  One  is  their  love  of  the  Bible  and 
their  belief  in  it;  but  the  other,  dominant  then 
and  now,  is  a  sense  of  the  need  of  their  own 
time.  It  cannot  be  too  strongly  urged  that  the 
two  great  pioneers  of  English  Bible  translation, 
Wiclif  and  Tindale,  more  than  a  century  apart, 
were  chiefly  moved  to  their  work  by  social  con- 
ditions. No  one  could  read  the  literature  of 
the  times  of  which  we  are  speaking  without 
smiling  at  our  assumption  that  we  are  the  first 
who  have  cared  for  social  needs.  We  talk  about 
the  past  as  the  age  of  the  individual,  and  the 
present  as  the  social  age.  Our  fathers,  we  say, 
cared  only  to  be  saved  themselves,  and  had  no 
concern  for  the  evils  of  society.  They  believed 
in  rescuing  one  here  and  another  there,  while 
we  have  come  to  see  the  wisdom  of  correcting 
the  conditions  that  ruin  men,  and  so  saving  men 
in   the   mass.     There   must   be   some   basis   of 

11 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

truth  for  that,  since  we  say  it  so  confidently; 
but  it  can  be  much  over-accented.  There  were 
many  of  our  fathers,  and  of  our  grandfathers, 
who  were  mightily  concerned  with  the  mass  of 
people,  and  looked  as  carefully  as  we  do  for  a 
corrective  of  social  evils.  Wiclif,  in  the  late 
fourteenth  century,  and  Tindale,  in  the  early 
sixteenth,  were  two  such  men.  The  first  Eng- 
lish translations  of  the  Bible  were  fruits  of  the 
social  impulse. 

Wiclif  was  impressed  with  the  chasm  that 
was  growing  between  the  church  and  the  peo- 
ple, and  felt  that  a  wider  and  fuller  knowledge 
of  the  Bible  would  be  helpful  for  the  closing  of 
the  chasm.  It  is  a  familiar  remark  of  Miss 
Jane  Addams  that  the  cure  for  the  evils  of 
democracy  is  more  democracy.  Wiclif  believed 
that  the  cure  for  the  evils  of  religion  is  more 
religion,  more  intelligent  religion.  He  found  a 
considerable  feeling  that  the  best  things  in 
religion  ought  to  be  kept  from  most  people, 
since  they  could  not  be  trusted  to  understand 
them.  His  own  feeling  was  that  the  best  things 
in  religion  are  exactly  the  things  most  people 
ought  to  know  most  about;  that  people  had  bet- 
ter handle  the  Bible  carelessly,  mistakenly,  than 
be  shut  out  from  it  by  any  means  whatever. 
We  owe  the  first  English  translation  to  a  faith 

12 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

that  the  Bible  is  a  book  of  emancipation  for  the 
mind  and  for  the  poKtical  Kfe. 

John  Wichf  himself  was  a  scholar  of  Oxford, 
y  master  of  that  famous  Balliol  College  which 
has  had  such  a  list  of  distinguished  masters. 
He  was  an  adviser  of  Edward  III.  Twenty- 
years  after  his  death  a  younger  contemporary 
(W.  Thorpe)  said  that  "he  was  considered  by 
many  to  be  the  most  holy  of  all  the  men  of  his 
age.  He  was  of  emaciated  frame,  spare,  and 
well  nigh  destitute  of  strength.  He  was  abso- 
lutely blameless  in  his  conduct."  And  even 
that  same  Knighton  who  accused  him  of  casting 
the  Church's  pearl  before  swine  says  that  in 
philosophy  "he  came  to  be  reckoned  inferior 
to  none  of  his  time." 

But  it  was  not  at  Oxford  that  he  came  to  know 
common  life  so  well  and  to  sense  the  need  for 
a  new  social  influence.  He  came  nearer  to  it 
when  he  was  rector  of  the  parish  at  Lutter- 
worth. As  scholar  and  rector  he  set  going  the 
two  great  movements  which  leave  his  name  in 
history  One  was  his  securing,  training,  and 
sending  out  a  band  of  itinerant  preachers  or 
"poor  priests"  to  gather  the  people  in  fields 
and  byways  and  to  preach  the  simple  truths 
of  the  Christian  religion.  They  were  unpaid, 
and  lived  by  the  kindness  of  the  common  peo- 

13 


I 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

pie.  They  came  to  be  called  Lollards,  though 
the  origin  of  the  name  is  obscure.  Their  fol- 
lowers received  the  same  name.  A  few  years 
after  Wiclif's  death  an  enemy  bitterly  observed 
that  if  you  met  any  two  men  one  was  sure  to 
be  a  Lollard.  It  was  the  "first  time  in  English 
history  that  an  appeal  had  been  made  to  the 

/,/! people  instead  of  the  scholars."  Religion  was 
to  be  made  rather  a  matter  of  practical  life  than 
of  dogma  or  of  ritual.  The  "poor  priests"  in 
their  cheap  brown  robes  became  a  mighty  re- 
ligious force,  and  evoked  opposition  from  the 
Church  powers.  A  generation  after  Wiclif's 
death  they  had  become  a  mighty  political  force 
in  the  controversy  between  the  King  and  the 
Pope.  As  late  as  1521  five  hundred  Lollards 
were  arrested  in  London  by  the  bishop.^  Wiclif's 
purpose,  however,  was  to  reach  and  help  the 
common  people  with  the  simpler,  and  therefore 

"^    the  most  fundamental,  truths  of  religion. 

The  other  movement  which  marks  Wiclif's 
name  concerns  us  more;  but  it  was  connected 
with  the  first.  He  set  out  to  give  the  common 
i  people  the  full  text  of  the  Bible  for  their  common 
use,  and  to  encourage  them  not  only  in  reading 
it,  if  already  they  could  read,  but  in  learning  to 
read  that  they  might  read  it.     Tennyson  com- 

1  Muir,  Our  Grand  Old  Bible,  p.  24. 
14 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

pares  the  village  of  Lutterworth  to  that  of 
Bethlehem,  on  the  ground  that  if  Christ,  the 
Word  of  God,  was  born  at  Bethlehem,  the  Word 
of  Life  was  born  again  at  Lutterworth.^  The 
translation  was  from  the  Vulgate,  and  Wiclif 
probably  did  little  of  the  actual  work  himself, 
yet  it  is  all  his  work.  And  in  1382,  more  than 
five  centuries  ago,  there  appeared  the  first  com- 
L/  plete  English  version  of  the  Bible.  Wiclif  made 
it  the  people's  Book,  and  the  English  people  were 
the  first  of  the  modern  nations  to  whom  the 
Bible  as  a  whole  was  given  in  their  own  familiar 
tongue.  Once  it  got  into  their  hands  they  have 
never  let  it  be  taken  entirely  away. 

Of  course,  all  this  was  before  the  days  of 
printing,  and  copies  were  made  by  hand  only. 
Yet  there  were  very  many  of  them.  One  hun- 
dred and  fifty  manuscripts,  in  whole  or  in  part, 
are  extant  still,  a  score  of  them  of  the  original 
version,  the  others  of  the  revision  at  once  under- 
taken by  John  Purvey,  Wiclif's  disciple.  The 
copies  belonging  to  Edward  VI.  and  Queen 
Elizabeth  are  both  still  in  existence,  and  both 
show   much   use.     Twenty   years   after   it   was 

^  "Not  least  art  thou,  thou  little  Bethlehem 
In  Judah,  for  in  thee  the  Lord  was  born; 
Nor  thou  in  Britain,  little  Lutterworth, 
Least,  for  in  thee  the  word  was  born  again." 

— Sir  John  Oldcastle. 
15 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

completed  copies  were  counted  very  valuable, 
though  they  were  very  numerous.  It  was  not 
uncommon  for  a  single  complete  manuscript 
copy  of  the  Wiclif  version  to  be  sold  for  one 
hundred  and  fifty  or  two  hundred  dollars,  and 
Foxe,  whose  Book  of  Martyrs  we  used  to  read  as 
children,   tells   that   a   load   of  hay   was   given 

/''   for  the  use  of  a  New  Testament  one  hour  a 
day. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  influence 
of  this  gift  to  the  English  people.  It  constitutes 
the  standard  of  Middle  English.  Chaucer  and 
Wiclif  stood  side  by  side.  It  is  true  that 
Chaucer  himself  accepted  Wiclif's  teaching,  and 
some  of  the  wise  men  think  that  the  "parson" 
of  whom  he  speaks  so  finely  as  one  who  taught 
the  lore  of  Christ  and  His  apostles  twelve,  but 
first  followed  it  himself,  was  Wiclif.  But  the  ver- 
sion had  far  more  than  literary  influence;  it  had 
tremendous  power  in  keeping  alive  in  England 
that  spirit  of  free  inquiry  which  is  the  only  safe- 
guard of  free  institutions.  Here  was  the  entire 
source  of  the  Christian  faith  available  for  the 
judgment  of  common  men,  and  they  became  at 
once  judges  of  religious  and  political  dogma. 
Dr.  Ladd  thinks  it  was  not  the  reading  of  the 

1^     Bible  which  produced  the  Reformation;    it  was 
the  Reformation  itself  which  procured  the  read- 

16 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

ing  of  the  Bible.^  But  Dr.  Rashdall  and  Pro- 
fessor Pollard  and  others  are  right  when  they 
insist  that  the  English  Reformation  received  less 
from  Luther  than  from  the  secret  reading  of  the 
Scripture  over  the  whole  country.  What  we 
call  the  English  spirit  of  free  inquiry  was  fos- 
tered and  developed  by  Wiclif  and  his  Lollards 
with  the  English  Scripture  in  their  hands.  Out 
of  it  has  grown  as  out  of  no  other  one  root  the 
freedom  of  the  English  and  American  people. 

This  work  of  Wiclif  deserves  the  time  we  have 
given  it  because  it  asserted  a  principle  for  the 
Enghsh  people.  There  was  much  yet  to  be 
done  before  entire  freedom  was  gained.  At 
Oxford,  in  the  Convocation  of  1408,  it  was 
solemnly  voted:  "We  decree  and  ordain  that 
no  man  hereafter  by  his  own  authority  trans- 
late any  text  of  the  Scripture  into  English,  or 
any  other  tongue,  by  way  of  a  book,  pamphlet, 
or  other  treatise;  but  that  no  man  read  any 
such  book,  pamphlet,  or  treatise  now  lately  com- 
posed in  the  time  of  John  Wiclif  .  .  .  until  the 
said  translation  be  approved  by  the  orderly  of 
\/the  place."  But  it  was  too  late.  It  is  always 
too  late  to  overtake  a  liberating  idea  once  it 
gets  free.*  Tolstoi  tells  of  Batenkoff,  the  Rus- 
sian nihilist,  that  after  he  was  seized  and  con- 

1  What  Is  the  Bible  ?,  p.  45. 
2  17 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

fined  in  his  cell  he  was  heard  to  laugh  loudly; 
and,  when  they  asked  him  the  cause  of  his  mirth, 
he  said  that  he  could  not  fail  to  be  amused  at 
the  absurdity  of  the  situation.  "They  have 
caught  me,"  he  said,  "and  shut  me  up  here; 
but  my  ideas  are  out  yonder  in  the  streets  and 
in  the  fields,  absolutely  free.  They  cannot 
overtake  them."  It  was  already  too  late, 
twenty  years  after  Wiclif's  version  was  avail- 
able, to  stop  the  English  people  in  their  search 
for  religious  truth. 

In  the  century  just  after  the  Wiclif  transla- 
tion, two  great  events  occurred  which  bore 
heavily  on  the  spread  of  the  Bible.  One  was 
the  revival  of  learning,  which  made  popular 
again  the  study  of  the  classics  and  the  classical 
languages.  Critical  and  exact  Greek  scholar- 
ship became  again  a  possibility.  Remember  that 
Wiclif  did  not  know  Greek  nor  Hebrew,  did  not 
need  to  know  them  to  be  the  foremost  scholar 
of  Oxford  in  the  fourteenth  century.  Even  as 
late  as  1502  there  was  no  professor  of  Greek  at 
the  proud  University  of  Erfurt  when  Luther  was 
a  student  there.  It  was  after  he  became  a 
doctor  of  divinity  and  a  university  professor 
that  he  learned  Greek  in  order  to  be  a  better 
Bible  student,  and  his  young  friend  Philip 
Melancthon   was  the  first  to    teach    Greek  in 

18 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

the  University.^  But  under  the  influence  of 
Erasmus  and  his  kind,  with  their  new  insistence 
on  classical  learning,  there  came  necessarily  a' 
new  appraisal  of  the  Vulgate  as  a  translation 
of  the  original  Bible.  For  a  thousand  years 
there  had  been  no  new  study  of  the  original 
Bible  languages  in  Europe.  The  Latin  of  the 
Vulgate  had  become  as  sacred  as  the  Book  it- 
self. But  the  revival  of  learning  threw  scholar- 
ship back  on  the  sources  of  the  text.  Erasmus 
and  others  published  versions  of  the  Greek 
Testament  which  were  disturbing  to  the  Vulgate 
as  a  final  version. 

The  other  great  event  of  that  same  century 
was  the  invention  of  printing  with  movable 
type.  It  was  in  1455  that  Gutenberg  printed 
his  first  book,  an  edition  of  the  Vulgate,  now 
called  the  Mazarin  Bible.  The  bearing  of  the 
invention  on  the  spread  of  common  knowledge 
is  beyond  description.  It  is  rather  late  to  be  . 
praising  the  art  of  printing,  and  we  need  spend 
little  time  doing  so;  but  one  can  see  instantly 
t  how  it  affected  the  use  of  the  Bible.  It  made  it 
worth  while  to  learn  to  read — there  would  be 
something  to  read.  It  made  it  worth  while  to 
write — there  would  be  some  one  to  read  what 
was  written. 

1  McGiffert,  Martin  Luther. 
19 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

One  hundred  years  exactly  after  the  death  of 
Widif,  William  Tindale  was  born.  He  was 
eight  years  old  when  Columbus  discovered 
America.  He  had  already  taken  a  degree  at 
Oxford,  and  was  a  student  in  Cambridge  when 
Luther  posted  his  theses  at  Wittenburg.  Eras- 
mus either  was  a  teacher  at  Cambridge  when 
Tindale  was  a  student  there,  or  had  just  left. 
Sir  Thomas  More  and  Erasmus  were  close 
friends,  and  More's  Utopia  and  Erasmus's 
Greek  New  Testament  appeared  the  same  year, 
probably  while  Tindale  was  a  student  at  Cam- 
bridge. 

But  he  came  at  a  troubled  time.  The  new 
learning  had  no  power  to  deepen  or  strengthen 
the  moral  life  of  the  people.  It  could  not  make 
religion  a  vital  thing.  Morality  and  religion 
were  far  separated.  The  priests  and  curates 
were  densely  ignorant.  We  need  not  ask  Tin- 
dale  what  was  the  condition.  Ask  Bellarmine, 
a  cardinal  of  the  Church:  "Some  years  before 
the  rise  of  the  Lutheran  heresy  there  was  almost 
an  entire  abandonment  of  equity  in  ecclesiasti- 
cal judgments;  in  morals,  no  discipline;  in 
sacred  literature,  no  erudition;  in  divine  things, 
no  reverence;  religion  was  almost  extinct."  Or 
ask  Erasmus,  who  never  broke  with  the  Church: 
"What  man  of  real  piety  does  not  perceive  with 

20 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

sighs  that  this  is  far  the  most  corrupt  of  all 
ages?  When  did  iniquity  abound  with  more 
licentiousness?  When  was  charity  so  cold?" 
And,  as  a  century  before,  Wiclif  had  felt  the 
social  need  for  a  popular  version  of  the  Bible, 
so  William  Tindale  felt  it  now.  He  saw  the 
need  as  great  among  the  clergy  of  the  time  as 
among  the  laity.  In  one  of  his  writings  he 
says:    "If  you  will  not  let  the  layman  have  the 

'  word  of  God  in  his  mother  tongue,  yet  let  the 
priests  have  it,  which  for  the  great  part  of 
them  do  understand  no  Latin  at  all,  but  sing 
and  patter  all  day  with  the  lips  only  that  which 
the  heart  understandeth  not."  ^  So  bad  was 
the  case  that  it  was  not  corrected  within  a  whole 
generation.  Forty  years  after  Tindale's  ver- 
sion was  published,  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester, 
Hooper  by  name,  made  an  examination  of  the 
clergy  of  his  diocese.     There  were  311  of  them. 

iy  He  found  168,  more  than  half,  unable  to  repeat 
the  Ten  Commandments;  31  who  did  not  even 
know  where  they  could  be  found;  40  who  could 
not  repeat  the  Lord's  Prayer;  and  nearly  as 
many  who  did  not  know  where  it  originated; 
yet  they  were  all  in  regular  standing  as  clergy 
in  the  diocese  of  Gloucester.  The  need  was 
keen  enough. 

1  Obedience  of  a  Christian  Man. 
21 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

About  1523  Tindale  began  to  cast  the  Scrip- 
tures into  the  current  EngHsh.  He  set  out  to 
London  fully  expecting  to  find  support  and  en- 
couragement there,  but  he  found  neither.  He 
found,  as  he  once  said,  that  there  was  no  room 
in  the  palace  of  the  Bishop  of  London  to  trans- 
late the  New  Testament;  indeed,  that  there  was 
no  place  to  do  it  in  all  England.  A  wealthy 
London  merchant  subsidized  him  with  the  mu- 
nificent gift  of  ten  pounds,  with  which  he  went 
across  the  Channel  to  Hamburg;  and  there  and 
elsewhere  on  the  Continent,  where  he  could  be  hid, 
he  brought  his  translation  to  completion.  Print- 
ing facilities  were  greater  on  the  Continent  than 
in  England;  but  there  was  such  opposition  to 
his  work  that  very  few  copies  of  the  several 
editions  of  which  we  know  can  still  be  found. 
Tindale  was  compelled  to  flee  at  one  time  with 
a  few  printed  sheets  and  complete  his  work  on 
another  press.  Several  times  copies  of  his  books 
were  solemnly  burned,  and  his  own  life  was  fre- 
quently in  danger. 

There  is  one  amusing  story  which  tells  how 
/  money  came  to  free  Tindale  from  heavy  debt 
and  prepare  the  way  for  more  Bibles.  The 
Bishop  of  London,  Tunstall,  was  set  on  destroy- 
ing copies  of  the  English  New  Testament.  He 
therefore  made  a  bargain  with  a  merchant  of 

22 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Antwerp,  Packington,  to  secure  them  for  him. 
Packington  was  a  friend  of  Tindale,  and  went 
to  him  forthwith,  saying:  "William,  I  know 
thou  art  a  poor  man,  and  I  have  gotten  thee  a 
merchant  for  thy  books."  "Who?"  asked  Tin- 
dale.  "The  Bishop  of  London."  "Ah,  but 
he  will  burn  them."  "So  he  will,  but  you  will 
have  the  money."  And  it  all  came  out  as  it 
was  planned;  the  Bishop  of  London  had  the 
books,  Packington  had  the  thanks,  Tindale  had 
the  money,  the  debt  was  paid,  and  the  new 
edition  was  soon  ready.  The  old  document, 
from  which  I  am  quoting,  adds  that  the  Bishop 
thought  he  had  God  by  the  toe  when,  indeed, 
he  found  afterward  that  he  had  the  devil  by 
the  fist.i 

The  final  revision  of  the  Tindale  translations 
was  published  in  1534,  and  that  becomes  the 
notable  year  of  his  life.  In  two  years  he  was 
put  to  death  by  strangling,  and  his  body  was 
burned.  When  we  remember  that  this  was 
done  with  the  joint  power  of  Church  and  State, 
we  realize  some  of  the  odds  against  which  he 
worked. 

Spite  of  his  odds,  however,  Tindale  is  the  real 
father  of  our  King  James  version.  About  eighty 
per  cent,  of  his  Old  Testament  and  ninety  per 

^  Pollard,  Records  of  the  English  Bible,  p.  151. 
23 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

cent,  of  his  New  Testament  have  been  trans- 
ferred to  our  version.  In  the  Beatitudes,  for 
example,  five  are  word  for  word  in  the  two  ver- 
sions, while  the  other  three  are  only  slightly 
changed.*  Dr.  Davidson  has  calculated  that 
nine-tenths  of  the  words  in  the  shorter  New 
Testament  epistles  are  Tindale's,  and  in  the 
longer  epistles  like  the  Hebrews  five-sixths  are 
his.  Froude's  estimate  is  fair:  "Of  the  trans- 
lation itself,  though  since  that  time  it  has  been 
many  times  revised  and  altered,  we  may  say 
that  it  is  substantially  the  Bible  with  which  we 
are  familiar.  The  peculiar  genius  which  breathes 
through  it,  the  mingled  tenderness  and  majesty, 
the  Saxon  simplicity,  the  preternatural  grandeur, 
unequaled,  unapproached,  in  the  attempted  im- 
provements of  modern  scholars,  all  are  here, 
and  bear  the  impress  of  the  mind  of  one  man, 
William  Tindale."^ 

We  said  a  moment  ago  that  Wiclif's  transla- 
tion was  the  standard  of  Middle  English.  It  is 
time  to  add  that  Tindale's  version  "fixed  our 
standard  English  once  for  all,  and  brought  it 
finally  into  every  English  home."     The  revisers 

*  The  fourth  reads  in  his  version,  "  Blessed  are  they  which 
hunger  and  thirst  for  righteousness";  the  seventh,  "Blessed  are 
the  maintainers  of  peace";  the  eighth,  "Blessed  are  they  which 
suffer  persecution  for  righteousness'  sake." 

^  History  of  England,  end  of  chap.  xii. 
24 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

of  1881  declared  that  while  the  authorized  ver- 
sion was  the  work  of  many  hands,  the  foun- 
dation of  it  was  laid  by  Tindale,  and  that  the 
versions  that  followed  it  were  substantially 
reproductions  of  Tindale's,  or  revisions  of  ver- 
sions which  were  themselves  almost  entirely  based 
on  it. 

There  was  every  reason  why  it  should  be  a 
worthy  version.  For  one  thing,  it  was  the  first 
translation  into  English  from  the  original  He- 
brew and  Greek.  Wiclif's  had  been  from  the 
Latin.  For  Tindale  there  were  available  two 
new  and  critical  Greek  Testaments,  that  of 
Erasmus  and  the  so-called  Complutensian, 
though  he  used  that  of  Erasmus  chiefly.  There 
was  also  available  a  carefully  prepared  Hebrew 
Old  Testament.  For  another  thing,  it  was  the 
first  version  which  could  be  printed,  and  so  be 
subject  to  easy  and  immediate  correction  and 
revision.  Then  also,  Tindale  himself  was  a 
great  scholar  in  the  languages.  He  was  "so 
skilled  in  the  seven  languages,  Hebrew,  Greek, 
Latin,  Italian,  Spanish,  English,  and  French, 
that,  whichever  he  spoke,  you  would  suppose  it 
was  his  native  tongue."^  Nor  was  his  spirit 
in  the  work  controversial.  I  say  his  "spirit  in 
the  work"  with  care.     They  were  controversial 

^  Herman  Buschius. 
25 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

times,  and  Tindale  took  his  share  in  the  verbal 
warfare.  When,  for  example,  there  was  objec- 
tion to  making  any  English  version  because 
"the  language  was  so  rude  that  the  Bible  could 
not  be  intelligently  translated  into  it,"  Tindale 
replied:  "It  is  not  so  rude  as  they  are  false 
liars.  For  the  Greek  tongue  agreeth  more  with 
the  English  than  with  the  Latin,  a  thousand 
parts  better  may  it  be  translated  into  the  Eng- 
lish than  into  the  Latin."  ^  And  when  a  high 
church  dignitary  protested  to  Tindale  against 
making  the  Bible  so  common,  he  replied:  "If 
God  spare  my  life,  ere  many  years  I  will  cause 
a  boy  that  driveth  a  plow  shall  know  more  of 
the  Scriptures  than  thou  dost."  And  while  that 
was  not  saying  much  for  the  plowboy,  it  was 
saying  a  good  deal  to  the  dignitary.  In  lan- 
guage, Tindale  was  controversial  enough,  but 
in  his  spirit,  in  making  his  version,  there  was  no 
element  of  controversy.  For  such  reasons  as 
these  we  might  expect  the  version  to  be  valuable. 
All  this  while,  and  especially  between  the  time 

1  This  will  mean  the  more  to  us  when  we  realize  that  the  lite- 
rary men  of  the  day  despised  the  English  tongue.  Sir  Thomas 
More  wrote  his  Utopia  in  Latin,  because  otherwise  educated 
men  would  not  deign  to  read  it.  Years  later  Roger  Ascham 
apologized  for  writing  one  of  his  works  in  English.  Putting  the 
Bible  into  current  English  impressed  these  literary  men  very 
much  as  we  would  be  impressed  by  putting  the  Bible  into  current 
glang. 

26 


1/ 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

when  Tindale  first  published  his  New  Testament 
and  the  time  they  burned  him  for  doing  so,  an 
interesting  change  was  going  on  in  England. 
The  King  was  Henry  VIIL,  who  was  by  no  means 
a  willing  Protestant.  As  Luther's  work  ap- 
peared, it  was  this  same  Henry  who  wrote  the 
pamphlet  against  him  during  the  Diet  of  Worms, 
and  on  the  ground  of  this  pamphlet,  with  its 
loyal  support  of  the  Church  against  Luther,  he 
received  from  the  Roman  pontiff  the  title  "De- 
fender of  the  Faith,"  which  the  kings  of  Eng- 
land still  wear.  And  yet  under  this  king  this 
strange  succession  of  dates  can  be  given.  Notice 
them  closely.  In  1526  Tindale's  New  Testa- 
ment was  burned  at  St.  Paul's  by  the  Bishop  of 
London;  ten  years  later,  1536,  Tindale  himself 
was  burned  with  the  knowledge  and  connivance 
of  the  English  government;  and  yet,  one  year 
later,  1537,  two  versions  of  the  Bible  in  English, 
three-quarters  of  which  were  the  work  of  Tin- 
dale,  were  licensed  for  public  use  by  the  King 
of  England,  and  were  required  to  be  made  avail- 
able for  the  people!  Eleven  years  after  the 
New  Testament  was  burned,  one  year  after 
Tindale  was  burned,  that  crown  was  set  on  his 
work!     What  brought  this  about? 

Three   facts   help    to    explain    it.     First,    the 
recent  years  of  Bible  translation   were  having 

27 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

their  weight.  The  fugitive  copies  of  the  Bible 
were  doing  their  work.  Spite  of  the  sharp  op- 
position fifty  thousand  copies  of  Tindale's  vari- 
ous editions  had  actually  been  published  and 
circulated.  Men  were  reading  them;  they  were 
approving  them.  The  more  they  read,  the  less 
reason  they  saw  for  hiding  the  Book  from  the 
people.  Why  should  it  not  be  made  common 
and  free?  There  was  strong  Lutheran  opinion 
in  the  universities.  It  was  already  a  custom 
for  English  teachers  to  go  to  Germany  for 
minute  scholarship.  They  came  back  with  Ger- 
man Bibles  in  Luther's  version  and  with  Greek 
Testaments,  and  the  young  scholars  who  were 
being  raised  up  felt  the  influence,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  of  the  free  use  of  the  Bible  which 
ruled  in  many  German  universities. 
y  The  second  fact  that  helps  to  explain  the  sud- 
den change  of  attitude  toward  the  Bible  is  this: 
the  people  of  England  were  never  willingly 
ruled  from  without,  religiously  or  politically. 
There  has  recently  been  a  considerable  con- 
troversy over  the  history  of  the  Established 
Church  of  England,  whether  it  has  always  been 
an  independent  church  or  was  at  one  time 
officially  a  part  of  the  Roman  Church.  That 
is  a  matter  for  ecclesiastical  history  to  deter- 
mine.    The  foundation  fact,  however,  is  as  I 

28 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

worded  it  a  moment  ago :  the  people  of  England 
were  never  willingly  ruled  from  without,  re- 
ligiously or  politically.  They  were  sometimes 
ruled  from  without;  but  they  were  either  in- 
different to  it  at  the  time  or  rebellious  against 
it.  Those  who  did  think  claimed  the  right  to 
think  for  themselves.  The  Scotch  of  the  north 
were  peculiarly  so,  but  the  English  of  the  south 
claimed  the  same  right.  There  has  always  been 
an  immense  contrast  between  the  two  sides  of 
the  British  Channel.  The  French  people  dur- 
ing all  those  years  were  deeply  loyal  to  a  for- 
eign religious  government.  The  English  pec^le 
were  never  so,  not  in  the  days  of  the  fullest 
Roman  supremacy.  They  always  demanded  at 
least  a  form  of  home  government.  That  made 
England  a  congenial  home  for  the  Protestant 
spirit,  which  claimed  the  right  to  independent 
study  of  the  sources  of  religion  and  independent 
judgment  regarding  them.  It  was  only  a  con- 
tinuance of  the  spirit  of  Wiclif  and  the  Lollards. 
The  spirit  in  a  nation  lives  long,  especially  when 
it  is  passed  down  by  tradition.  Those  were  not 
the  days  of  newspapers.  They  were  instead 
the  days  of  great  meetings,  more  important  still 
of  small  family  gatherings,  where  the  memory 
of  the  older  men  was  called  into  use,  and  where 
boys  and  girls  drank  in  eagerly  the  traditions 

29 


THE     GREATEST-  ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

of  their  own  country  as  expressed  in  the  great 
events  of  their  history.  Newspapers  never  can 
fully  take  the  place  of  those  gatherings,  for  they 
do  not  bring  men  together  to  feel  the  thrill  of 
the  story  that  is  told.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  the  entire  population  of  England  at  that 
time  was  only  about  three  millions.  And  that 
old  spirit  of  independence  was  strongly  at  work 
in  the  middle-class  villages  and  among  the  mer- 
chants, and  they  were  a  ruling  and  dominant 
class.  That  was  second,  that  in  those  ten  years 
there  asserted  itself  the  age-long  unwillingness 
of  the  English  people  to  be  ruled  from  without. 
The  third  fact  which  must  be  taken  into  ac- 
count to  explain  this  remarkable  change  of 
front  of  the  public  English  life  is  Henry  VIII. 
himself.  There  is  much  about  him  that  no 
country  would  willingly  claim.  He  was  the 
most  habitual  bridegroom  in  English  history; 
he  had  an  almost  confirmed  habit  of  beheading 
his  wives  or  otherwise  ridding  himself  of  them. 
Yet  many  traits  made  him  a  typical  outstanding 
Englishman.  He  had  the  characteristic  spirit  of 
independence,  the  resentment  of  foreign  con- 
trol, satisfaction  with  his  own  land,  the  feeling 
that  of  course  it  is  the  best  land.  There  are  no 
people  in  the  world  so  well  satisfied  with  their 
own  country  as  the  people  of  England  or  the 

30 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

British  Isles.  They  are  critical  of  many  things 
in  their  own  government  until  they  begin  to 
compare  it  with  other  countries;  they  must 
make  their  changes  on  their  own  lines.  The 
pamphlet  of  Henry  VIII.,  which  won  him  the 
title  of  Defender  of  the  Faith,  praised  the  pope; 
and,  though  Sir  Thomas  More  urged  him  to 
change  his  expressions  lest  he  should  live  to 
regret  them,  he  would  not  change  them.  But 
that  was  while  the  pope  was  serving  his  wishes 
and  what  he  felt  was  England's  good. 

There  arose  presently  the  question,  or  the 
several  questions,  about  his  marriage.  It  sheds 
no  glory  on  Henry  VIII.  that  they  arose  as  they 
did;  but  his  treatment  of  them  must  not  be 
mistaken.  He  was  concerned  to  have  his  mar- 
riage to  Anne  Boleyn  confirmed,  and  there  are 
some  who  think  he  was  honest  in  believing  it 
ought  to  be  confirmed,  though  we  need  not  be- 
lieve that.  What  happened  was  that  for  the 
first  time  Henry  VIII.  found  that  as  sovereign  ^ 
of  England  he  must  take  commands  from  a  for- 
eign power,  a  power  exercising  temporal  sover- 
eignty exactly  as  he  did,  but  adding  to  it  a  claim 
to  spiritual  power,  a  claim  to  determine  his  con- 
duct for  him  and  to  absolve  his  people  from 
loyalty  to  him  if  he  was  not  obedient.  It  arose 
over  the  question  of  his  divorce,  but  it  might 

31 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

have  arisen  over  anything  else.  It  was  hmita- 
tion  on  his  sovereignty  in  England.  And  he  let 
it  be  seen  that  all  questions  that  pertain  to  Eng- 
land were  to  be  settled  in  England,  and  not 
in  another  land.  He  would  rather  have  a  mat- 
ter settled  wrong  in  England  than  settled  right 
elsewhere.  That  is  how  he  claimed  to  be 
head  of  the  English  Church.  The  people  back 
of  him  had  always  held  to  the  belief  that  they 
were  governed  from  within,  though  they  were 
linked  to  religion  from  without.  He  executed 
their  theory.  That  assertion  of  English  sover- 
eignty came  during  the  eventful  years  of  which 
we  are  speaking. 

Here,  then,  are  our  great  facts.  First,  thought- 
ful opinion  wanted  the  Bible  made  available, 
and  at  a  convention  of  bishops  and  university 
men  the  King  was  requested  to  secure  the  is- 
suance of  a  proper  translation.  Secondly,  the 
people  wanted  it,  the  more  because  it  would- 
gratify  their  English  instinct  of  independent 
judgment  in  matters  of  religion.  Thirdly,  the 
King  granted  it  without  yielding  his  personal 
religious  position,  in  assertion  of  his  human 
sovereignty  within  his  own  realm. 

So  England  awoke  one  morning  in  1537  to 
discover  that  it  had  a  translation  of  the  Bible, 
two  of  them  actually,  open  to  its  use,  the  very 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

thing  that  had  been  forbidden  yesterday!  And 
that,  one  year  after  Tindale  had  been  burned  in 
loyal  France  for  issuing  an  English  translation! 
Two  versions  were  now  authorized  and  made 
available.  What  were  they?  That  of  Miles 
Coverdale,  which  had  been  issued  secretly  two 
years  before,  and  that  known  as  the  "Matthew" 
Bible,  though  the  name  has  no  significance, 
issued  within  a  year.  Details  are  not  to  our 
purpose.  Neither  was  an  independent  work, 
but  was  made  largely  from  the  Latin  and  the 
German,  and  much  influenced  by  Tindale. 
Coverdale  was  a  Yorkshire  man  like  Wiclif, 
feminine  in  his  mental  cast  as  Tindale  was  mas- 
culine. Coverdale  made  his  translation  because 
he  loved  books;  Tindale  because  he  felt  driven 
to  it.  But  now  the  way  was  clear,  and  other 
editions  appeared.  It  is  natural  to  name  one 
or  two  of  the  more  notable  ones. 

There  appeared  what  is  known  as  the  Great 
Bible  in  1539.  It  was  only  another  version 
made  by  Coverdale  on  the  basis  of  the  Matthew 
version,  but  corrected  by  more  accurate  knowl- 
edge. There  is  an  interesting  romance  of  its 
publication.  The  presses  of  England  were  not 
adequate  for  the  great  work  planned;  it  was  to 
be  a  marvel  of  typography.  So  the  consent  of 
King  Francis  was  gained  to  have  it  printed  in 

3  33 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

France,  and  Coverdale  was  sent  as  a  special 
ambassador  to  oversee  it.  He  was  in  dread  of 
the  Inquisition,  which  was  in  vogue  at  the  time, 
and  sent  off  his  printed  sheets  to  England  as 
rapidly  as  possible.  Suddenly  one  day  the  order 
of  confiscation  came  from  the  Inquisitor-Gen- 
eral. Only  Coverdale's  official  position  as  repre- 
senting the  King  saved  his  own  life.  As  for  the 
printed  sheets  on  which  so  much  depended, 
they  seemed  doomed.  But  in  the  nick  of  time 
a  dealer  appeared  at  the  printing-house  and  pur- 
chased four  great  vats  full  of  waste  paper  which 
he  shipped  to  England — when  it  was  found  that 
the  waste  paper  was  those  printed  sheets.  The 
presses  and  the  printers  were  all  loyal  to  England, 
and  the  edition  was  finally  completed.  The 
Great  Bible  was  issued  to  meet  a  decree  that  each 
church  should  make  available  in  some  con- 
venient place  the  largest  possible  copy  of  the 
whole  Bible,  where  all  the  parishioners  could 
have  access  to  it  and  read  it  at  their  will.  The 
version  gets  its  name  solely  from  the  size  of 
the  volume.  That  decree  dates  1538,  twelve 
years  after  Tindale's  books  were  burned,  and 
two  years  after  he  was  burned!  The  installa- 
tion of  these  great  books  caused  tremendous  ex- 
citement— crowds  gathered  everywhere.  Bishop 
Bonner  caused  six  copies  of  the  great  volume 

34 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

to  be  located  wisely  throughout  St.  Paul's.  He 
found  it  difficult  to  make  people  leave  them 
during  the  sermons.  He  was  so  often  inter- 
rupted by  voices  reading  to  a  group,  and  by  the 
discussions  that  ensued,  that  he  threatened  to 
have  them  taken  out  during  the  service  if  peo- 
ple would  not  be  quiet.  The  Great  Bible  ap- 
peared in  seven  editions  in  two  years,  and 
continued  in  recognized  power  for  thirty  years. 
Much  of  the  present  English  prayer-book  is 
taken  from  it. 

But  this  liberty  was  so  sudden  that  the  peo- 
ple naturally  abused  it.  Henry  became  vexed 
because  the  sacred  words  "  were  disputed,  rimed, 
sung,  and  jangled  in  every  ale-house."  There 
had  grown  up  a  series  of  wild  ballads  and  ri- 
bald songs  in  contempt  of  "the  old  faith," 
while  it  was  not  really  the  old  faith  which  was 
in  dispute,  but  only  foreign  control  of  English 
faith.  They  had  mistaken  Henry's  meaning. 
So  Henry  began  to  put  restrictions  on  the  use 
of  the  Bible.  There  were  to  be  no  notes  or 
annotations  in  any  versions,  and  those  that 
existed  were  to  be  blacked  out.  Only  the  upper 
classes  were  to  be  allowed  to  possess  a  Bible. 
Finally,  the  year  before  his  death,  all  versions 
were  prohibited  except  the  Great  Bible,  whose 
cost  and  size  precluded  secret  use.     The  decree 

35 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

led  to  another  great  burning  of  Bibles  in  1546 — 
Tindale,  Coverdale,  Matthew — all  but  the  Great 
Bible.  The  leading  religious  reformers  took 
flight  and  fled  to  European  Protestant  towns 
like  Frankfort  and  Strassburg.  But  the  Bible 
remained.  Henry  VIII.  died.  The  Bible  lived 
on. 

Under  Edward  VI.,  the  boy  king,  coming  to 
the  throne  at  nine  and  dying  at  fifteen,  the 
regency  with  Crammer  at  its  head  earned  its 
bad  name.  But  while  its  members  were  shame- 
lessly despoiling  churches  and  enriching  them- 
selves they  did  one  great  service  for  the  Bible. 
They  cast  off  all  restrictions  on  its  translation 
and  publication.  The  order  for  a  Great  Bible 
in  every  church  was  renewed,  and  there  was  to 
be  added  to  it  a  copy  of  Erasmus's  paraphrase 
of  the  four  gospels.  Nearly  fifty  editions  of 
the  Bible,  in  whole  or  in  part,  appeared  in  those 
six  years. 

And  that  was  fortunate,  for  then  came  Mary 
— and  the  deluge.  Of  course,  she  again  gave  in 
the  nominal  allegiance  of  England  to  the  Roman 
control.  But  she  utterly  missed  the  spirit  of 
the  people.  They  were  weary  with  the  excesses 
of  rabid  Protestantism;  but  they  were  by  no 
means  ready  to  admit  the  principle  of  foreign 
control  in  religious  matters.     They  might  have 

36 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

been  willing,  many  of  them,  that  the  use  of  the 
Bible  should  be  restricted,  if  it  were  done  by 
their  own  sovereign.  They  were  not  willing 
that  another  sovereign  should  restrict  them. 
So  the  secret  use  of  the  Bible  increased.  Martyr 
fires  were  kindled,  but  by  the  light  of  them  the 
people  read  their  Bibles  more  eagerly.  And  this 
very  persecution  led  to  one  of  the  best  of  the 
.yearly  versions  of  the  Bible,  indirectly  even  to 
the  King  James  version. 

The  flower  of  English  Protestant  scholarship 
was  driven  into  exile,  and  found  its  way  to 
Frankfort  and  Geneva  again.  There  the  spirit 
of  scholarship  was  un trammeled;  there  they 
found  material  for  scholarly  study  of  the  Bible, 
and  there  they  made  and  published  a  new  ver- 
sion of  the  Bible  in  English,  by  all  means  the 
best  that  had  been  made.  In  later  years,  under 
Elizabeth,  it  drove  the  Great  Bible  off  the  field 
by  sheer  power  of  excellence.  During  her  reign 
sixty  editions  of  it  appeared.  This  was  the  ver- 
sion called  the  Genevan  Bible.  It  made  several 
changes  that  are  familiar  to  us.  For  one  thing, 
in  the  Genevan  edition  of  1560  first  appeared 
our  familiar  division  into  verses.  The  chapter 
division  was  made  three  centuries  earlier;  but 
the  verses  belong  to  the  Genevan  version,  and 
are  divided  to  make  the  Book  suitable  for  re- 

37 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

sponsive  use  and  for  readier  reference.  It  was 
taken  in  large  part  from  the  work  of  Robert 
Stephens,  who  had  divided  the  Greek  Testament 
into  verses,  ten  years  earHer,  during  a  journey 
which  he  was  compelled  to  make  between  Paris 
and  Lyons.  The  Genevan  version  also  aban- 
doned the  old  black  letter,  and  used  the  Roman 
type  with  which  we  are  familiar.  It  had  full 
notes  on  hard  passages,  which  notes,  as  we  shall 
see,  helped  to  produce  the  King  James  version. 
The  work  itself  w^as  completed  after  the  accession 
of  Elizabeth,  when  most  of  the  religious  leaders 
had  returned  to  England  from  their  exile  under 
Mary. 

Elizabeth  herself  was  not  an  ardent  Protes- 
tant, not  ardent  at  all  religiously,  but  an  ardent 
Englishwoman.  She  understood  her  people,  and 
while  she  prided  herself  on  being  the  "Guardian 
of  the  Middle  Way,"  she  did  not  make  the 
mistake  of  submitting  her  sovereignty  to  for- 
eign supervision.  Probably  Elizabeth  always 
counted  herself  personally  a  Catholic,  but  not 
politically  subject  to  the  Roman  pontiff.  She 
had  no  wish  to  offend  other  Catholic  powers; 
but  she  was  determined  to  develop  a  strong 
national  spirit  and  to  allow  religious  differences 
to  exist  if  they  would  be  peaceful.  The  dra- 
matic scene  which  was  enacted  at  the  time  of 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

her  coronation  procession  was  typical  of  her 
l/spirit.  As  the  procession  passed  down  Cheap- 
side,  a  venerable  old  man,  representing  Time, 
with  a  little  child  beside  him  representing 
Truth — Time  always  old.  Truth  always  young — 
presented  the  Queen  with  a  copy  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, which  she  accepted,  promising  to  read 
them  diligently. 

Presently  it  was  found  that  two  versions  of 
the  Bible  were  taking  the  field,  the  old  Great 
Bible  and  the  new  Genevan  Bible.  On  all 
accounts  the  Genevan  was  the  better  and  was 
driving  out  its  rival.  Yet  there  could  be  no 
hope  of  gaining  the  approval  of  Elizabeth  for 
the  Genevan  Bible.  For  one  thing,  John  Knox 
had  been  a  party  to  its  preparation;  so  had 
Calvin.  Elizabeth  detested  them  both,  es- 
pecially Knox.  For  another  thing,  its  notes 
were  not  favorable  to  royal  sovereignty,  but 
smacked  so  much  of  popular  government  as  to 
be  offensive.  For  another  thing,  though  it  had 
been  made  mostly  by  her  own  people,  it  had  been 
made  in  a  foreign  land,  and  was  under  suspicion 
on  that  account.  The  result  was  that  Elizabeth's 
archbishop,  Parker,  set  out  to  have  an  au- 
thorized version  made,  selected  a  revision  com- 
mittee, with  instructions  to  follow  wherever 
possible  the  Great  Bible,  to  avoid  bitter  notes, 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

and  to  make  such  a  version  that  it  might  be 
freely,  easily,  and  naturally  read.  The  result 
is  known  as  the  Bishops'  Bible.  It  was  issued 
in  Elizabeth's  tenth  year  (1568),  but  there  is 
no  record  that  she  ever  noticed  it,  though  Parker 
sent  her  a  copy  from  his  sick-bed.  The  Bish- 
ops' Bible  shows  the  influence  of  the  Genevan 
Bible  in  many  ways,  though  it  gives  no  credit 
for  that.  It  is  not  of  equal  merit;  it  was  ex- 
pensive, too  cumbersome,  and  often  unscholarly. 
Only  its  official  standing  gave  it  life,  and  after 
forty  years,  in  nineteen  editions,  it  was  no  longer 
published. 

Naming  one  other  English  version  will  com- 
plete the  series  of  facts  necessary  for  the  con- 
sideration of  the  forming  of  the  King  James 
version.  It  will  be  remembered  that  all  the 
English  versions  of  the  Bible  thus  far  mentioned 
were  the  work  of  men  either  already  out  of  favor 
with  the  Roman  pontiff,  or  speedily  put  out  of 
favor  on  that  account.  Thirty  years  after  his 
death,  Wiclif's  bones  were  taken  up  and  burned; 
Tindale  was  burned.  Coverdale's  version  and 
the  Great  Bible  were  the  product  of  the  period 
when  Henry  VIII.  was  under  the  ban.  The 
Genevan  Bible  was  the  work  of  refugees,  and 
the  Bishops'  Bible  was  prepared  when  Eliza- 
beth   had    been    excommunicated.     That    fact 

40 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

seemed  to  many  loyal  Roman  churchmen  to 
put  the  Church  in  a  false  light.  It  must  be 
made  clear  that  its  opposition  was  not  to  the 
Bible,  not  even  to  popular  use  and  possession 
of  the  Bible,  but  only  to  unauthorized,  even 
incorrect,  versions.  So  there  came  about  the 
Douai  version,  instigated  by  Gregory  Martin, 
and  prepared  in  some  sense  as  an  answer  to  the 
Genevan  version  and  its  strongly  anti-papal 
notes.  It  was  the  work  of  English  scholars  con- 
nected with  the  University  of  Douai.  The  New 
Testament  was  issued  at  Rheims  in  1582,  and 
the  whole  Bible  in  1609,  just  before  our  King 
James  version.  It  is  made,  not  from  the  He- 
brew and  the  Greek,  though  it  refers  to  both, 
but  from  the  Vulgate.  The  result  is  that  the 
Old  Testament  of  the  Douai  version  is  a  trans- 
lation into  English  from  the  Latin,  which  in 
large  part  is  a  translation  into  Latin  from  the 
Greek  Septuagint,  which  in  turn  is  a  translation 
into  Greek  from  the  Hebrew.  Yet  scholars  are 
scholars,  and  it  shows  marked  influence  of  the 
Genevan  version,  and,  indeed,  of  other  English 
versions.  Its  notes  were  strongly  anti-Prot- 
estant, and  in  its  preface  it  explains  its  exist- 
ence by  saying  that  Protestants  have  been  guilty 
of  "casting  the  holy  to  dogs  and  pearls  to  hogs." 
The  version  is  not  in  the  direct  line  of  the 

41 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

ascent  of  the  familiar  version,  and  needs  no 
elaborate  description.  Its  purpose  was  con- 
troversial; it  did  not  go  to  available  sources; 
its  English  was  not  colloquial,  but  ecclesiasti- 
cal. For  example,  in  the  Lord's  Prayer  we  read: 
"Give  us  this  day  our  supersubstantial  bread," 
instead  of  "our  daily  bread."  In  Hebrews  xiii: 
17,  the  version  reads,  "Obey  your  prelates  and 
be  subject  unto  them."  In  Luke  iii:3,  John 
came  "preaching  the  baptism  of  penance."  In 
Psalm  xxiii:5,  where  we  read,  "My  cup  runneth 
over,"  the  Douai  version  reads,  "My  chalice 
which  inebriateth  me,  how  goodly  it  is." 
There  is  a  careful  retention  of  ecclesiastical 
terms,  and  an  explanation  of  the  passages  on 
which  Protestants  had  come  to  differ  rather 
sharply  from  their  Roman  brethren,  as  in  the 
matter  of  the  taking  of  the  cup  by  the  people, 
and  elsewhere. 

Yet  it  is  only  fair  to  remember  that  this  much 
answer  was  made  to  the  versions  which  were 
preparing  the  way  for  the  greatest  version  of 
them  all,  and  when  the  time  came  for  the  making 
of  that  version,  and  the  helps  were  gathered 
together,  the  Douai  was  frankly  placed  among 
them.  It  is  a  peculiar  irony  of  fate  that  while 
the  purpose  of  Gregory  Martin  was  to  check 
the  translation  of  the  Bible  by  the  Protestants, 

42 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

the  only  effect  of  his  work  was  to  advance  and 
improve  that  translation. 
^     At  last,  as  we  shall  see  in  our  next  study,  the 
'^  way  was  cleared  for  a  free  and  open  setting  of 
the   Bible   into   English.     The   way   had   been 
beset  with  struggle,  marked  with  blood,  lighted 
by  martyr  fires.     Wiclif  and  Purvey,  Tmdale 
and  Coverdale,  the  refugees  at  Geneva  and  the 
Bishops    at   London,    all   had   trod   that   way. 
Kings  had  fought  them  or  had  favored  them; 
it  was  all  one;   they  had  gone  on.    Loyal  zest 
for  their  Book  and  loving  zeal  for  the  common 
people  had  held  them  to  the  path.     Now  it 
had  become  a  highway  open  to  all  men.     And 
right  worthy   were  the  feet  which  were  soon 
treading  it. 


LECTURE  II 

THE  MAKING   OF   THE  KING  JAMES  VERSION;     ITS 
CHARACTERISTICS 

T7ARLY  in  January,  1604,  men  were  making 
-*— ^  their  way  along  the  poor  Enghsh  high- 
ways, by  coach  and  carrier,  to  the  Hampton 
Court  Palace  of  the  new  Enghsh  king.  They 
were  coming  from  the  cathedral  towns,  from  the 
universities,  from  the  larger  cities.  Many  were 
Church  dignitaries,  many  were  scholars,  some 
were  Puritans,  all  were  loyal  Englishmen,  and 
they  were  gathering  in  response  to  a  call  for 
a  conference  with  the  king,  James  I.  They  were 
divided  in  sentiment,  these  men,  and  those  who 
hoped  most  from  the  conference  were  doomed 
to  complete  disappointment.  Not  one  among 
them,  not  the  King,  had  the  slightest  purpose 
that  the  conference  should  do  what  proved  to 
be  its  only  real  service.  Some  of  the  men, 
grave  and  earnest,  were  coming  to  present  their 
petitions  to  the  King,  others  were  coming  to 
oppose  their  petitions;  the  King  meant  to  deny 

44 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

them  and  to  harry  the  petitioners.  And  every- 
thing came  out  as  it  had  been  planned.  Yet 
the  largest  service  of  the  conference,  the  only 
real  service,  was  in  no  one's  mind,  for  it  was  at 
Hampton  Court,  on  the  last  day  of  the  con- 
ference between  James  and  the  churchmen, 
January  18,  1604,  that  the  first  formal  step  was 
taken  toward  the  making  of  the  so-called  Au- 
thorized Version  of  the  English  Bible.  If  there 
are  such  things  as  accidents,  this  great  enter- 
prise began  in  an  accident.  But  the  outcome  of 
the  accident,  the  volume  that  resulted,  is  "al- 
lowed by  all  competent  authorities  to  be  the 
first  [that  is,  the  chief]  English  classic,"  if  our 
Professor  Cook,  of  Yale,  may  speak;  "is  uni- 
versally accepted  as  a  literary  masterpiece,  as 
the  noblest  and  most  beautiful  Book  in  the 
world,  which  has  exercised  an  incalculable  in- 
fluence upon  religion,  upon  manners,  upon  lit- 
erature, and  upon  character,"  if  the  Balliol  Col- 
lege scholar  Hoare  can  be  trusted;  and  has 
"made  the  Enghsh  language,"  if  Professor  March 
is  right.  The  purpose  of  this  study  is  to  show 
how  that  accident  occurred,  and  what  im- 
mediately came  from  it. 

With  the  death  of  Elizabeth  the  Tudor  line 
of  sovereigns  died  out.     The  collateral  Stuart 

45 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

line,  descending  directly  from  Henry  VII., 
naturally  succeeded  to  the  throne,  and  James 
VI.  of  Scotland  made  his  royal  progress  to  the 
English  capital  and  became  James  I.  of  Eng- 
land. In  him  appears  the  first  of  that  Stuart 
line  during  whose  reign  great  changes  were  to 
occur.  Every  one  in  the  line  held  strongly  to 
the  dogma  of  the  divine  right  of  kings,  yet  under 
that  line  the  English  people  transferred  sover- 
eignty from  the  king  to  Parhament.^  Fortu- 
nately for  history,  and  for  the  progress  of  popu- 
lar government,  the  Stuart  line  had  no  forceful 
figures  in  it.  Macaulay  thinks  it  would  have 
been  fatal  to  English  liberty  if  they  had  been 
able  kings.  It  was  easier  to  take  so  dangerous 
a  weapon  as  the  divine  right  of  kings  from  weak 
hands  than  from  strong  ones.  So  it  was  that 
though  James  came  out  of  Scotland  to  assert 
his  divine  and  arbitrary  right  as  sovereign,  by 
the  time  Queen  Anne  died,  closing  the  Stuart 
line  and  giving  way  to  the  Hanoverian,  the  real 
sovereignty  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  Parlia- 
ment. 

But  the  royal  traveler,  coming  from  Edin- 
burgh to  London,  is  interesting  on  his  own 
account — interesting  at  this  distance.  He  is 
thirty-seven  years  old,  and  ought  to  be  in  the 

^  Trevelyan,  England  Under  the  Stuarts. 
46 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

beginning  of  his  prime.  He  is  a  little  over 
middle  height;  loves  a  good  horse,  though  he  is 
an  ungainly  rider,  and  has  fallen  off  his  horse 
three  or  four  times  during  his  royal  progress; 
is  a  heavy  drinker  of  the  liquors  of  the  period, 
with  horribly  coarse,  even  gross  manners.  Ma- 
caulay  is  very  severe  with  him.  He  says  that 
"his  cowardice,  his  childishness,  his  pedantry, 
1/  his  ungainly  person  and  manners,  his  provincial 
accent,  made  him  an  object  of  derision.  Even 
in  his  virtues  and  accomplishments  there  was 
something  eminently  unkingly."  ^  It  seemed 
too  bad  that  "royalty  should  be  exhibited  to  the 
world  stammering,  slobbering,  shedding  unman- 
ly tears,  trembling  at  the  drawn  sword,  and 
talking  in  the  style  alternately  of  a  buffoon  and 
of  a  pedagogue."  That  is  truly  not  an  attrac- 
tive picture.  But  there  is  something  on  the 
other  side.  John  Richard  Green  puts  both 
sides:  "His  big  head,  his  slobbering  tongue,  his 
quilted  clothes,  his  rickety  legs  stood  out  in  as 
grotesque  a  contrast  with  all  that  men  recalled  of 
Henry  and  Elizabeth  as  his  gabble  and  rhodo- 
montade,  his  want  of  personal  dignity,  his 
buffoonery,  his  coarseness  of  speech,  his  pedan- 
try, his  contemptible  cowardice.  Under  this 
ridiculous  exterior,  however,  lay  a  man  of  much 

1  History  of  England,  chap.  i. 
47 


1/ 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

natural  ability,  a  ripe  scholar  with  a  consider- 
able fund  of  shrewdness,  of  mother  wit  and 
ready  repartee."^ 

Some  good  traits  he  must  have  had.  He  did 
win  some  men  to  him.  As  some  one  has  said, 
"You  could  love  him;  you  could  despise  him; 
you  could  not  hate  him."  He  could  say  some 
witty  and  striking  things.  For  example,  when 
he  was  urging  the  formal  union  of  Scotland  and 
England,  and  it  was  opposed,  he  said:  "But  I 
am  the  husband,  and  the  whole  island  is  my 
wife.  I  hope  no  one  will  be  so  unreasonable 
as  to  suppose  that  I,  that  am  a  Christian  king 
under  the  Gospel,  should  be  a  polygamist  and 
husband  to  two  wives."  ^  After  the  conference 
of  which  we  have  been  speaking,  he  wrote  to  a 
friend  in  Scotland:  "I  have  had  a  revel  with  the 
Puritans  and  have  peppered  them  soundly." 
As  indeed  he  had.  Then,  in  some  sense  at  least, 
"James  was  a  born  theologian."  He  had  studied 
the  Bible  in  some  form  from  childhood;  one  of 
the  first  things  we  hear  of  his  doing  is  the  writ- 
ing of  a  paraphrase  on  the  book  of  the  Revela- 
tion. In  his  talk  he  made  easy  and  free  use  of 
Scripture  quotations.  To  be  sure,  his  knowledge, 
on  which  he  prided  himself  unconscionably,  was 

*  Short  History  of  the  English  People,  chap,  viii,  sec.  ii. 
^  Trevelyan,  England  Under  the  Stuarts,  p.  107. 
48 


v^ 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

shallow  and  pedantic.  Henry  IV.  of  France, 
one  of  his  contemporaries,  said  that  he  was  "the 
wisest  fool  in  Christendom." 

Now,  it  was  this  man  who  was  making  his 
royal  progress  from  Edinburgh  to  London  in 
March,  1603,  nearly  a  year  before  the  gathering 
of  men  which  we  were  observing  at  the  opening 
of  this  study.  Many  things  happened  on  the 
journey  besides  his  falling  off  his  horse  several 
times;  but  one  of  the  most  significant  was  the 
halting  of  the  progress  to  receive  what  was 
called  the  Miliary  Petition,  whose  name  implies 
that  it  was  signed  by  a  thousand  men — actually 
somewhat  less  than  that  number — mostly  min- 
isters of  the  Church.  The  Petition  made  no 
mention  of  any  Bible  version,  yet  it  was  the 
beginning  of  the  events  which  led  to  it.  Back 
of  it  was  the  Puritan  influence.  It  asked  for 
reforms  in  the  English  Church,  for  the  correc- 
tion of  abuses  which  had  grown  under  Eliza- 
beth's increasing  favor  of  ritual  and  ceremony. 
It  asked  for  a  better-trained  ministry,  for  better 
discipline  in  the  Church,  for  the  omission  of 
so  many  detailed  requirements  of  rites  and 
ceremonies,  and  for  that  perennially  desired  re- 
form, shorter  church  services! 

Very  naturally  the  new  King  replied  that  he 
would  take  it  up  later,  and  promised  to  call  a 

4  49 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

conference  to  consider  it.  And  this  he  did. 
The  conference  met  at  Hampton  Court  in  Jan- 
uary, 1604,  and  it  was  for  this  that  the  men 
were  coming  from  many  parts  of  England.  The 
gathering  was  held  on  the  14th,  16th,  and  18th 
of  the  month.  Its  sole  purpose  was  to  consider 
that  Miliary  Petition;  but  the  King  called  to  it 
not  only  those  who  had  signed  the  Petition,  but 
those  who  had  opposed  it.  He  had  no  notion 
of  granting  any  favor  to  it,  and  from  the  first 
he  gave  the  Puritans  rough  treatment.  He 
told  them  he  would  have  none  of  their  non- 
conformity, he  would  "make  them  conform  or 
harry  them  out  of  the  land."  Some  one  suggested 
that  since  this  was  a  Church  matter  there  be 
called  a  Synod,  or  some  general  gathering  fitted  to 
discuss  and  determine  such  things,  rather  than 
leave  it  to  a  few  Church  dignitaries.  For  the 
purposes  of  the  petitioners  it  was  a  most  un- 
fortunate expression.  James  had  just  come  from 
Scotland,  where  the  Presbyterians  were  with 
their  Synod,  and  where  Calvinism  was  in  full 
swing.  He  was  much  in  favor  of  some  elements 
of  Calvinism;  but  he  could  not  see  how  all  the 
elements  held  together.  Predestination,  for  ex- 
ample, which  offends  so  many  people  to-day, 
was  a  precious  doctrine  to  King  James,  and  he 
insisted  that  his  subjects  ought  to  see  how  clearly 

50 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

God  had  predestined  him  to  rule  over  them! 
But  he  could  not  tolerate  the  necessary  logical 
inference  of  Calvinism  that  all  men  must  be 
equal  before  God,  and  so  men  can  make  and 
unmake  kings  as  they  need  to  do  so,  the  matter 
of  king  or  subject  being  purely  an  incidental 
one.  He  remembered  the  time  when  Andrew 
Melville,  one  of  the  Scotch  ministers,  had 
plucked  him  by  his  royal  sleeve  and  called  him 
"God's  silly  vassal"  right  to  his  face.  So, 
when  some  one  said  "Synod"  it  brought  the 
King  up  standing.  He  burst  out:  "If  that  is 
what  you  mean,  if  you  want  what  the  Scotch 
mean  by  their  Synod  and  their  Presbytery,  then 
I  tell  you  at  once  that  I  will  have  none  of  it. 
Presbytery  agrees  with  monarchy  very  much  as 
God  agrees  with  the  devil.  If  you  have  no 
bishop,  you  will  soon  have  no  king."  He  was 
perfectly  right,  with  reference  to  the  kind  of 
king  he  meant.  These  things  were  to  be  set- 
tled, he  meant,  by  authority,  and  not  by  con- 
ference. That  is  the  point  to  which  Gardiner 
refers  when  he  says  that  "in  two  minutes  James 
sealed  his  own  fate  and  that  of  England  for- 
ever."^ 

After  that  there  was  only  a  losing  fight  for 
the  petitioners.     They  had  touched  a  sore  spot 

1  History  of  England,  1603-42. 
51 


THE    GREATEST'    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

in  James's  history.  But  it  was  when  they 
touched  that  sore  spot  again  that  they  started 
the  movement  for  a  new  version  of  the  Bible. 
It  was  on  the  second  day  of  the  conference, 
January  16th,  that  Dr.  Reynolds,  president  of 
Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford,  who  represented 
the  moderate  Puritan  position,  and,  like  many 
moderate  men,  was  rather  suspected  by  both 
extreme  wings,  instanced  as  one  of  the  hardships 
of  the  Puritans  that  they  were  compelled  to  use 
the  prayer-book  of  the  time,  and  that  it  con- 
tained many  mistranslations  of  Scripture,  some 
of  which  he  quoted.  Now,  it  so  happens  that 
the  errors  to  which  he  referred  occur  in  the 
Bishops'  and  the  Great  Bible,  which  were  the 
two  authorized  versions  of  the  time,  but  are 
all  corrected  in  the  Genevan  version.  We  do 
not  know  what  point  he  was  trying  to  make, 
whether  he  was  urging  that  the  Genevan  ver- 
sion should  supplant  these  others,  or  whether 
he  was  calling  for  a  new  translation.  Indeed, 
we  are  not  sure  that  he  even  mentioned  the 
Genevan  version.  But  James  spoke  up  to  say 
that  he  had  never  yet  seen  a  Bible  well  trans- 
lated into  English;  but  the  worst  of  all  he 
thought  the  Genevan  to  be.  He  spoke  as  though 
he  had  just  had  a  copy  given  him  by  an  English 
lady,  and  had  already  noted  what  he  called  its 

52 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

errors.  That  was  at  the  very  least  a  royal 
evasion,  for  if  there  was  any  Book  he  did  know 
it  was  the  Genevan  version.  He  had  been  fairly 
raised  on  it;  he  had  lived  in  the  country  where 
it  was  commonly  used.  It  had  been  preached 
at  him  many  and  many  a  time.  Indeed,  he 
had  used  it  as  the  text  for  that  paraphrase  of 
the  Revelation  of  which  we  spoke  a  moment  ago. 
And  he  knew  its  notes — well  he  knew  them — 
knew  that  they  were  from  republican  Geneva, 
and  that  kingly  pretensions  had  short  shrift 
with  them.  James  told  the  conference  that 
these  notes  were  "very  partial,  untrue,  seditious, 
savoring  too  much  of  traitorous  and  dangerous 
conceits,"  supporting  his  opinion  by  two  in- 
stances which  seemed  disrespectful  to  royalty. 
One  of  these  instances  was  the  note  on  Exodus 
i:17,  where  the  Egyptian  midwives  are  said  to 
have  disobeyed  the  king  in  the  matter  of  de- 
stroying the  children.  The  note  says:  "Their 
disobedience  to  the  king  was  lawful,  though 
their  dissembling  was  not."  James  quoted  that, 
and  said:  "It  is  false;  to  disobey  the  king  is 
not  lawful,  and  traitorous  conceits  should  not 
go  forth  among  the  people." 

Some  of  the  High  Church  party  objected  that 
there  were  translations  enough  already;  but  it 
struck  James's  fancy  to  set  them  all  aside  by 

53 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

another  version,  which  he  at  once  said  he  would 
order.  It  was  to  be  made  by  the  most  learned 
of  both  universities,  then  to  be  revised  by  the 
bishops  and  other  Church  dignitaries,  then  pre- 
sented to  the  Privy  Council,  and  finally  to  be 
passed  upon  by  himself.  There  is  the  echo  of 
some  sharp  Scotch  experiences  in  his  declaration 
that  there  were  to  be  no  marginal  notes  in  that 
new  version. 

When  they  looked  back  on  the  conference, 
the  Puritans  felt  that  they  had  lost  everything, 
and  the  High  Church  people  that  they  had  gained 
everything.  One  of  the  bishops,  in  a  very  ser- 
vile way,  and  on  his  knee,  gave  thanks  to  God 
for  having  given  the  country  such  a  king,  whose 
like  had  never  been  seen  since  Christ  was  on 
earth.  Certainly  hard  times  were  ahead  for 
the  Puritans.  The  King  harried  them  according 
to  his  word.  Within  sixteen  years  some  of  them 
landed  at  Plymouth  Rock,  and  things  began  to 
happen  on  this  side.  That  settlement  at  Ply- 
mouth was  the  outcome  of  the  threat  the  King 
had  made  at  the  Hampton  Court  conference. 

But  looking  back  one  can  see  that  the  con- 
ference was  worth  while  for  the  beginning  of 
the  movement  for  the  new  version.  The  King 
was  true  to  his  word  in  this  line  also,  and  before 
the  year  was  out  had  appointed  the  fifty-four 

54 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

best  Bible  scholars  of  the  realm  to  make  the  new 
version.  They  were  to  sit  in  six  companies  of 
nine  each,  two  at  Oxford,  two  at  Cambridge, 
and  two  at  Westminster.  The  names  of  only 
forty-seven  of  them  have  come  down  to  us,  and 
it  is  not  known  whether  the  other  seven  were 
ever  appointed,  or  in  what  way  their  names  have 
been  lost.  It  must  be  said  for  the  King  that  the 
only  principle  of  selection  was  scholarship,  and 
when  those  six  groups  of  men  met  they  were 
men  of  the  very  first  rank,  with  no  peers  outside 
their  own  numbers — with  one  exception,  and 
that  exception  is  of  some  passing  interest.  Hugh 
Broughton  was  probably  the  foremost  Hebrew 
scholar  of  England,  perhaps  of  the  world,  at  the 
time,  and  apparently  he  was  not  appointed  on 
the  committee.  Chiefly,  it  seems  to  have  been 
because  he  was  a  man  of  ungovernable  temper 
and  utterly  unfitted  to  work  with  others.  Fail- 
ure to  appoint  him,  however,  bit  and  rankled, 
and  the  only  keen  and  sharp  criticism  that  was 
passed  on  the  version  in  its  own  day  was  by 
Hugh  Broughton.  He  sent  word  to  the  King, 
after  it  was  completed,  that  as  for  himself  he 
would  rather  be  rent  to  pieces  by  wild  horses 
than  have  had  any  part  in  the  urging  of  such  a 
wretched  version  of  the  Bible  on  the  poor  peo- 
ple.    That  was  so  manifestly  pique,  however, 

55 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

that  it  is  only  to  be  regretted  that  the  trans- 
lation did  not  have  the  benefit  of  his  great 
Hebrew  knowledge.  John  Selden,  at  his  prime 
in  that  day,  voiced  the  feeling  of  most  scholars 
of  the  times,  that  the  new  translation  was  the 
best  in  the  world  and  best  gave  the  sense  of 
the  original. 

We  do  not  know  much  of  the  personnel  of 
the  company.  Their  names  would  mean  very 
little  to  us  at  this  distance.  All  were  clergy- 
men except  one.  There  were  bishops,  college 
principals,  university  fellows,  and  rectors.  Dr. 
Reynolds,  who  suggested  it  in  the  first  place, 
was  a  member,  though  he  did  not  live  to  see  the 
work  finished.  This  Dr.  Reynolds,  by  the  way, 
was  party  to  a  most  curious  episode.  He  had 
been  an  ardent  Roman  Catholic,  and  he  had  a 
brother  who  was  an  equally  ardent  Protestant. 
They  argued  with  each  other  so  earnestly  that 
each  convinced  the  other;  the  Roman  Catholic 
became  a  Protestant,  and  the  Protestant  became 
a  Roman  Catholic!  Dr.  Lancelot  Andrewes, 
chairman  of  one  of  the  two  companies  that  met 
at  Westminster,  was  probably  the  most  learned 
man  in  England.  They  said  of  him  that  if  he 
had  been  present  at  the  tower  of  Babel  he  could 
have  interpreted  for  all  the  tongues  present. 
The   only   trouble   was   that   the   world   lacked 

56 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

learning  enough  to  know  how  learned  he  was. 
His  company  had  the  first  part  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  the  simple  dignity  of  the  style 
they  used  shows  how  scholarship  and  simplicity 
go  easily  together.  Most  people  would  consider 
that  the  least  satisfactory  part  of  the  work  is 
the  second  section,  running  from  I  Chronicles 
to  Ecclesiastes.  A  convert  from  another  faith, 
who  learned  to  read  the  Bible  in  English,  once 
expressed  to  a  friend  of  my  own  his  feeling  that 
except  for  the  Psalms  and  parts  of  Job,  there 
seemed  to  be  here  a  distinct  letting-down  of  the 
dignity  of  the  translation.  There  is  good  ex- 
cuse for  this,  if  it  is  so,  for  two  leading  members 
of  the  company  who  had  that  section  in  charge, 
both  eminent  Cambridge  scholars,  died  very 
early  in  the  work,  and  their  places  were  not 
filled.  The  third  company,  sitting  at  Oxford, 
were  peculiarly  strong,  and  had  for  their  portion 
the  hardest  part  of  the  Old  Testament — all  the 
prophetical  writings.  But  they  did  their  part 
with  finest  skill.  The  fourth  company,  sitting  at 
Cambridge,  had  the  Apocrypha,  the  books  which 
lie  between  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments 
for  the  most  part,  or  else  are  supplemental  to 
certain  Old  Testament  books.  Their  work  was 
rather  hastily  and  certainly  poorly  done,  and 
has  been  dropped  out  of  most  editions.     The 

57 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

fifth  company,  sitting  at  Oxford,  with  great 
Greek  scholars  on  it,  took  the  Gospels,  the  Acts, 
and  the  Revelation.  This  company  had  in  it 
the  one  layman.  Sir  Henry  Savile,  then  the  great- 
est Greek  scholar  in  England.  It  is  the  same 
Sir  Henry  Savile  who  heard,  on  his  death-bed 
in  1621,  that  James  had  with  his  own  hands 
torn  from  the  Journal  of  Parliament  the  pages 
which  bore  the  protest  in  favor  of  free  speech 
in  Parliament.  Hearing  it,  the  faithful  scholar 
prayed  to  die,  saying:  "I  am  ready  to  depart, 
the  rather  that  having  lived  in  good  times  I 
foresee  worse."  The  sixth  company  met  at 
Westminster  and  translated  the  New  Testament 
epistles. 

It  was  the  original  plan  that  when  one  com- 
pany had  finished  its  part,  the  result  should  go 
to  each  of  the  other  companies,  coming  back 
with  their  suggestions  to  the  original  workers  to 
be  recast  by  them.  The  whole  was  then  to  be 
reviewed  by  a  smaller  committee  of  scholars  to 
give  it  uniformity  and  to  see  it  through  the 
press.  The  records  are  not  extant  that  tell 
whether  this  was  done  in  full  detail,  though  we 
may  presume  that  each  section  of  the  Scripture 
had  the  benefit  of  the  scholarship  of  the  entire 
company. 

We  know  a  good  deal  of  the  method  of  their 

58 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

work.  We  shall  understand  it  better  by  re- 
calling what  material  they  had  at  hand.  They 
were  enabled  to  use  the  result  of  all  the  work 
that  had  been  done  before  them.  They  were 
instructed  to  follow  the  Bishops'  Bible  wherever 
they  could  do  so  fairly;  but  they  were  given 
power  to  use  the  versions  already  named  from 
Wiclif  down,  as  well  as  those  fragmentary  ver- 
sions which  were  numerous,  and  of  which  no 
mention  has  been  made.  They  ransacked  all 
English  forms  for  felicitous  words  and  happy 
phrases.  It  is  one  of  the  interesting  incidents 
that  this  same  Hugh  Broughton,  who  was  left 
off  the  committee  and  took  it  so  hard,  yet  with- 
out his  will  contributed  some  important  matter 
to  the  translation,  because  he  had  on  his  own 
authority  made  translations  of  certain  parts  of 
the  Scripture.  Several  of  our  capital  phrases 
in  the  King  James  version  are  from  him.  There 
was  no  effort  to  break  out  new  paths.  Prefer- 
ence was  always  given  to  a  familiar  phrase 
rather  than  to  a  new  one,  unless  accuracy  re- 
quired it.  First,  then,  they  had  the  benefit  of 
all  the  work  that  had  been  done  before  in  the 
same  line,  and  gladly  used  it. 

In  addition,  they  had  all  other  versions  made 
in  the  tongues  of  the  time.  Chiefly  there  was 
Luther's  German  Bible,  already  become  for  the 

59 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

German  tongue  what  their  version  was  destined 
to  be  for  the  Enghsh  tongue.  There  were  parts 
of  the  Bible  available  in  Spanish,  French,  and 
Dutch.  They  were  kept  at  hand  constantly 
for  any  light  they  might  cast  on  difficult  pas- 
sages. 

For  the  Old  Testament  there  were  very  few 
Hebrew  texts.  There  had  been  little  critical 
work  yet  done  on  them,  and  for  the  most  part 
there  were  only  different  editions  running  back 
over  the  centuries.  We  have  little  more  than 
that  now,  and  there  is  almost  no  new  material 
on  the  Old  Testament  since  the  days  of  the 
King  James  translators.  There  was,  of  course, 
the  Septuagint,  the  Greek  translation  from  the 
Hebrew  made  before  Christ,  with  the  guidance 
it  could  give  in  doubtful  places  on  the  probable 
original.  And  finally  there  was  the  Vulgate, 
made  into  Latin  out  of  the  Greek  and  Hebrew. 
This  was  all  the  Old  Testament  material  they 
had,  or  that  any  one  could  have  in  view  of  the 
antiquated  original  sources. 

The  New  Testament  material  was  more 
abundant,  though  not  nearly  so  abundant  as 
to-day.  There  were  few  manuscripts  of  the 
early  days  to  which  they  could  refer;  but  there 
were  the  two  great  critical  versions  of  the  New 
Testament  in  Greek,  that  by  Erasmus  and  the 

60 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Complutensian,  which  had  made  use  of  the  best 
manuscripts  known.  Then,  finally  again,  there 
was  the  Vulgate. 

We  must  stop  a  moment  to  see  what  was  the 
value  of  the  Vulgate  in  this  work.  It  is  im- 
possible to  reckon  the  number  of  the  early  New 
Testament  manuscripts  that  have  been  lost. 
In  the  earlier  day  the  Scriptures  were  trans- 
mitted from  church  to  church,  and  from  age  to 
age,  by  manuscripts.  Many  of  them  were 
made  as  direct  copies  of  other  manuscripts;  but 
many  were  made  by  scribes  to  whom  the  manu- 
scripts were  read  as  they  wrote,  so  that  there  are 
many,  though  ordinarily  comparatively  slight, 
variations  among  the  manuscripts  which  we  now 
know.  More  manuscripts  are  coming  to  light 
constantly,  manuscripts  once  well  known  and 
then  lost.  Many  of  them,  perhaps  many  earlier 
than  we  now  have,  must  have  been  familiar  to 
Jerome  four  hundred  years  after  Christ.  When, 
therefore,  there  is  a  plain  difference  between  the 
Vulgate  and  our  early  Greek  manuscripts,  the 
Vulgate  may  be  wrong  because  it  is  only  a  trans- 
lation; but  it  may  be  right  because  it  is  a  trans- 
lation of  earlier  manuscripts  than  some  of  ours. 
It  is  steadily  losing  its  value  at  that  point,  for 
Greek  manuscripts  are  all  the  time  coming  to 
light  which  run  farther  back.     But  we  must  not 

61 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

minimize  the  value  of  the  Vulgate  for  our  King 
James  translation. 

With  all  this  material  the  scholars  of  the  early- 
seventeenth  century  set  to  work.  Each  man 
in  the  group  made  the  translation  that  seemed 
best  to  him,  and  together  they  analyzed  the 
results  and  finally  agreed  on  the  best.  They 
hunted  the  other  versions  to  see  if  it  had  been 
better  done  elsewhere.  The  shade  of  Tindale 
was  over  it  all.  The  Genevan  version  was  most 
influential.  The  Douai  had  its  share,  and  the 
Bishops'  was  the  general  standard,  altered  only 
when  accuracy  required  it.  On  all  hard  passages 
they  called  to  their  aid  the  appropriate  depart- 
ments of  both  universities.  All  scholars  every- 
where were  asked  to  send  in  any  contributions, 
to  correct  or  criticize  as  they  would.  Public 
announcement  of  the  work  was  made,  and  all 
possible  help  was  besought  and  gladly  accepted. 

Very  faithfully  these  greatest  scholars  of  their 
time  wrought.  No  one  worked  for  money,  and 
no  one  worked  for  pay,  but  each  for  the  joy  of 
the  working.  Three  years  they  spent  on  the 
original  work,  three  years  on  careful  revision 
and  on  the  marginal  references  by  which  Scrip- 
ture was  made  to  throw  light  on  Scripture. 
Then  in  six  months  a  committee  reviewed  it  all, 
put  it  through  the  press,  and  at  last,  in  1611, 

62 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

with  the  imprint  of  Robert  Barker,  Printer  to 
the  King's  Most  Excellent  Majesty,  the  King 
James  version  appeared.  The  name  Authorized 
Version  is  not  a  happy  one,  for  so  far  as  the 
records  go  it  was  never  authorized  either  by 
the  King  or  the  bishop;  and,  even  if  it  were,  the 
authority  does  not  extend  beyond  the  English 
Church,  which  is  a  very  small  fraction  of  those 
who  use  it.  On  the  title-page  of  the  original 
version,  as  on  so  many  since,  is  the  familiar 
line,  "Appointed  to  be  Read  in  Churches,"  but 
who  made  the  appointment  history  does  not  say. 
The  version  did  not  at  once  supersede  the 
Genevan  and  the  Bishops';  but  it  was  so  in- 
comparably better  than  either  that  gradually 
they  disappeared,  and  by  sheer  excellence  it 
took  the  field,  and  it  holds  the  field  to-day  in 
spite  of  the  numerous  supposedly  improved  ver- 
sions that  have  appeared  under  private  auspices. 
It  holds  the  field,  also,  in  spite  of  the  excellent 
revised  version  of  1881  made  by  authority,  and 
the  more  excellent  version  issued  in  1901  by  the 
American  Revision  Committee,  to-day  un- 
doubtedly the  best  version  in  existence,  con- 
sidered simply  as  a  reproduction  of  the  sense 
of  the  original.  And  for  reasons  that  may  later 
appear,  the  King  James  version  bids  fair  to 
hold  the  field  for  many  years  to  come. 

63 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

When  we  turn  from  the  history  of  its  making 
to  the  work  itself,  there  is  much  to  say.  We 
may  well  narrow  our  thought  for  the  remainder 
of  the  study  to  its  traits  as  a  version  of  the 
Bible. 

I.  Name  this  first,  that  it  is  an  honest  version. 
That  is,  it  has  no  argumentative  purpose.  It 
is  not,  as  the  scholars  say,  apologetic.  It  is 
simply  an  out-and-out  version  of  the  Scrip- 
ture, as  honestly  as  they  could  reproduce  it. 
There  were  Puritans  on  the  committee;  there 
were  extreme  High  Churchmen;  there  were 
men  of  all  grades  between.  But  there  is  no- 
where any  evidence  that  any  one  was  set  on 
making  the  Bible  prove  his  point.  There  were 
strong  anti-papal  believers  among  them;  but 
they  made  free  use  of  the  Douai  version,  and, 
of  course,  of  the  Vulgate.  They  knew  the  feel- 
ing that  Hugh  Broughton  had  toward  them; 
but  they  made  generous  use  of  all  that  was  good 
in  his  work.  They  were  working  under  a  royal 
warrant,  and  their  dedication  to  King  James, 
with  its  absurd  and  fulsome  flattery,  shows  what 
they  were  capable  of  when  they  thought  of  the 
King.  But  there  is  no  twist  of  a  text  to  make 
it  serve  the  purposes  of  royalty.  They  might 
be  servile  when  they  thought  of  King  James; 
but  there  was  not  a  touch  of  servility  in  them 

64 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

when  they  thought  of  the  Scripture  itself.  They 
were  under  instruction  not  to  abandon  the  use 
of  ecclesiastical  terms.  For  instance,  they  were 
not  to  put  "congregation"  in  place  of  "church," 
as  some  Puritans  wanted  to  do.  Some  thought 
that  was  meant  to  insure  a  High  Church  ver- 
sion; but  the  translators  did  not  understand  it 
so  for  a  moment.  They  understood  it  only  to 
safeguard  them  against  making  a  partisan  ver- 
sion on  either  side,  and  to  help  them  to  make 
a  version  which  the  people  could  read  under- 
standingly  at  once.  It  was  not  to  be  a  Puri- 
tan Book  nor  a  High  Church  Book.  It  was  to 
l^he  an  honest  version  of  the  Bible,  no  matter 
whose  side  it  sustained. 

Now,  if  any  one  thinks  that  is  easy,  or  only 
a  matter  of  course,  he  plainly  shows  that  he  has 
never  been  a  theologian  or  a  scholar  in  a  con- 
tested field.  Ask  any  lawyer  whether  it  is  easy 
to  handle  his  authorities  with  entire  impartiality, 
whether  it  is  a  matter  of  course  that  he  will  let 
them  say  just  what  they  meant  to  say  when  his 
case  is  involved.  Of  course,  he  will  seek  to  do 
it  as  an  honest  lawyer,  but  equally,  of  course,  he 
will  have  to  keep  close  watch  on  himself  or  he 
will  fail  in  doing  it.  Ask  any  historian  whether 
it  is  easy  to  handle  the  original  documents  in  a 
field  in  which  he  has  firm  and  announced  opin- 

5  65 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

ions,  and  to  let  those  documents  speak  exactly 
what  they  mean  to  say,  whether  they  support 
him  or  not.  The  greater  historians  will  always 
do  it,  but  they  will  sometimes  do  it  with  a  bit 
of  a  wrench. 

Even  a  scholar  is  human,  and  these  men  sit- 
ting in  their  six  companies  would  all  have  to 
meet  this  Book  afterward,  would  have  their 
opinions  tried  by  it.  There  must  have  been 
times  when  some  of  them  would  be  inclined  to 
salt  the  mine  a  little,  to  see  that  it  would  yield 
what  they  would  want  it  to  yield  later.  So  far 
as  these  men  were  able  to  do  it,  they  made  it 
say  in  English  just  what  it  said  in  Hebrew  and 
Greek.  They  showed  no  inclination  to  use  it 
as  a  weapon  in  their  personal  warfare. 

One  line  of  that  honest  effort  is  worth  observ- 
ing more  closely.  When  points  were  open  to 
fair  discussion,  and  scholarship  had  not  settled 
them,  they  were  careful  not  to  let  their  version 
take  sides  when  it  could  be  avoided.  On  some 
mooted  words  they  did  not  try  translation,  but 
transliteration  instead.  That  is,  they  brought 
the  Greek  or  Hebrew  word  over  into  English, 
letter  by  letter.  Suppose  scholars  differed  as  to 
the  exact  meaning  in  English  of  a  word  in  the 
Greek.  Some  said  it  has  this  meaning,  and  some 
that  it  has  that.     Now,  if  the  version  committed 

66 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

itself  to  one  of  those  meanings,  it  became  an 
argument  at  once  against  the  other  and  helped 
to  settle  a  question  on  which  scholarship  was  not 
yet  agreed.  They  could  avoid  making  a  parti- 
san Book  by  the  simple  device  of  bringing  the 
word  which  was  disputed  over  into  the  new 
translation.  That  left  the  discussion  just  where 
it  was  before,  but  it  saved  the  work  from  being 
partisan.  The  method  of  transliteration  did  not 
always  work  to  advantage,  as  we  shall  see,  but 
it  was  intended  throughout  to  save  the  Book 
from  taking  sides  on  any  question  where  honest 
men  might  differ  as  to  the  meaning  of  words. 

They  did  that  with  all  proper  names,  and 
that  was  notable  in  the  Old  Testament,  because 
most  Old  Testament  proper  names  can  be  trans- 
lated. They  all  mean  something  in  themselves. 
Adam  is  the  Hebrew  word  for  man;  Abraham 
means  Father  of  a  Great  Multitude;  David  is 
the  Hebrew  word  for  Beloved;  Malachi  means 
My  Messenger.  Yet  as  proper  names  they  do 
not  mean  any  of  those  things.  It  is  impossible 
to  translate  a  proper  name  into  another  tongue 
without  absurdity.  It  must  be  transliterated. 
Yet  there  is  constant  fascination  for  translators 
in  the  work  of  translating  these  proper  names, 
trying  to  make  them  seem  more  vivid.  It  is 
quite  likely,  though  it  is  disputed,  that  proper 

67 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

names  do  all  go  back  to  simple  meanings.  But 
by  the  time  they  become  proper  names  they  no 
longer  have  those  meanings.  The  only  proper 
treatment  of  them  is  by  transliteration. 

The  King  James  translators  follow  that  same 
practice  of  transliteration  rather  than  trans- 
lation with  another  word  which  is  full  of  con- 
troversial possibility.  I  mean  the  word  "bap- 
tism." There  was  dispute  then  as  now  about 
the  method  of  that  ordinance  in  early  Christian 
history.  There  were  many  who  held  that  the 
classical  meaning  which  involved  immersion  had 
been  taken  over  bodily  into  the  Christian  faith, 
and  that  all  baptism  was  by  immersion.  There 
were  others  who  held  that  while  that  might  be 
the  classical  meaning  of  the  word,  yet  in  early 
Christian  custom  baptism  was  not  by  immersion, 
but  might  be  by  sprinkling  or  pouring,  and  who 
insisted  that  no  pressure  on  the  mode  was  wise 
or  necessary.  That  dispute  continues  to  this 
day.  Early  versions  of  the  Bible  already  fig- 
ured in  the  discussion,  and  for  a  while  there  was 
question  whether  this  King  James  version  should 
take  sides  in  that  controversy,  about  which  men 
equally  loyal  to  truth  and  early  Christian  his- 
tory could  honestly  differ.  The  translators 
avoided  taking  sides  by  bringing  the  Greek 
word   which   was    under    discussion    over    into 

68 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

English,  letter  by  letter.  Our  word  "baptism" 
is  not  an  English  word  nor  a  Saxon  word;  it 
is  a  purely  Greek  word.  The  controversy  has 
been  brought  over  into  the  English  language; 
but  the  King  James  version  avoided  becoming 
a  controversial  book.  A  number  of  years  ago 
the  convictions  of  some  were  so  strong  that  an- 
other version  of  the  Bible  was  made,  in  which 
the  word  baptism  was  carefully  replaced  by 
what  was  believed  to  be  the  English  transla- 
tion, "immersion,"  but  the  version  never  had 
wide  influence. 

In  this  connection  it  is  well  to  notice  the 
effort  of  the  King  James  translators  at  a  fair 
statement  of  the  divine  name.  It  will  be  re- 
membered that  it  appears  in  the  Old  Testament 
ordinarily  as  "Lord,"  printed  in  small  capitals. 
A  very  interesting  bit  of  verbal  history  lies  back 
of  that  word.  The  word  which  represents  the 
divine  name  in  Hebrew  consists  of  four  con- 
sonants, J  or  Y,  H,  V,  and  h.  There  are  no 
vowels;  indeed,  there  were  no  vowels  in  the 
early  Hebrew  at  all.  Those  that  we  now  have 
were  added  not  far  from  the  time  of  Christ. 
No  one  knows  the  original  pronunciation  of  that 
sacred  name  consisting  of  four  letters.  At  a 
very  early  day  it  had  become  too  sacred  to  pro- 
nounce, so  that  when  men  came  to  it  in  reading 

69 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

or  in  speech,  they  simply  used  another  word 
which  is,  translated  into  English,  Lord,  a  word  of 
high  dignity.  When  the  time  came  that  vowels 
were  to  be  added  to  the  consonants,  the  vowels 
of  this  other  word  Lord  were  placed  under  the 
consonants  of  the  sacred  name,  so  that  in  the 
word  Jehovah,  where  the  j  h  v  H  occur,  there 
are  the  consonants  of  one  word  whose  vowels 
are  unknown  and  the  vowels  of  another  word 
whose  consonants  are  not  used. 

Illustrate  it  by  imagining  that  in  American 
literature  the  name  Lincoln  gathered  to  itself 
such  sacredness  that  it  was  never  pronounced 
and  only  its  consonants  were  ever  printed.  Sup- 
pose that  whenever  readers  came  to  it  they 
simply  said  Washington,  thinking  Lincoln  all 
the  while.  Then  think  of  the  displacement  of 
the  vowels  of  Lincoln  by  the  vowels  of  Wash- 
ington. You  have  a  word  that  looks  like  Lan- 
cilon  or  Lanicoln;  but  a  reader  would  never 
pronounce  so  strange  a  word.  He  would  always 
say  Washington,  yet  he  would  always  think  the 
other  meaning.  And  while  he  would  retain  the 
meaning  in  some  degree,  he  would  soon  forget 
the  original  word,  retaining  only  his  awe  of  it. 
Which  is  just  what  happened  with  the  divine 
name.  The  Hebrews  knew  it  was  not  Lord,  yet 
they  always  said  Lord  when  they  came  to  the 

70 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

four  letters  that  stood  for  the  sacred  word. 
The  word  Jehovah,  made  up  of  the  consonants 
of  an  unknown  word  and  the  vowels  of  a  famil- 
iar word,  is  in  itself  meaningless.  Scholarship 
is  not  yet  sure  what  was  the  original  meaning 
of  the  sacred  name  with  its  four  consonants. 

These  translators  had  to  face  that  problem. 
It  was  a  peculiar  problem  at  that  time.  How 
should  they  put  into  English  the  august  name  of 
God  when  they  did  not  know  what  the  true 
vowels  were.^  There  was  dispute  among  scholars. 
They  did  not  take  sides  as  our  later  American 
Revision  has  done,  some  of  us  think  quite  un- 
wisely. They  chose  to  retain  the  Hebrew  usage, 
and  print  the  divine  name  in  unmistakable  type 
so  that  its  personal  meaning  could  not  be  mis- 
taken. 

On  the  other  hand,  disputes  since  their  day 
have  shown  how  they  translated  when  trans- 
literation would  have  been  wiser.  Illustrate  with 
one  instance.  There  is  a  Hebrew  word,  Sheol, 
with  a  Greek  word.  Hades,  which  corresponds  to 
it.  Usage  had  adopted  the  Anglo-Saxon  word 
Hell  as  the  equivalent  of  both  of  these  words, 
so  they  translated  Sheol  and  Hades  with  the 
English  word  Hell.  The  only  question  that  had 
been  raised  was  by  that  Hugh  Broughton  of 
whom  we  were  speaking  a  moment  ago,  and  it 

7X 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

had  not  seemed  a  serious  one.  Certainly  the 
three  terms  have  much  in  common,  and  there 
are  places  where  both  the  original  words  seemed 
to  be  virtually  equivalent  to  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Hell,  but  they  are  not  the  same.  The  Revised 
Version  of  our  own  time  returned  to  the  original, 
and  instead  of  translating  those  words  whose 
meaning  can  be  debated,  it  transliterated  them 
and  brought  the  Hebrew  word  Sheol  and  the 
Greek  word  Hades  over  into  English.  That, 
of  course,  gave  a  chance  for  paragraphers  to  say 
that  the  Revised  Version  had  read  Hell  out  of 
the  Scriptures.  All  that  happened  was  that 
cognizance  was  taken  of  a  dispute  which  would 
have  guided  the  King  James  translators  if  it 
had  existed  in  their  time,  and  we  should  not 
have  become  familiar  with  the  Anglo-Saxon 
word  Hell  as  the  translation  of  those  disputed 
Hebrew  and  Greek  words. 

We  need  not  seek  more  instances.  These  are 
enough  to  illustrate  the  saying  that  here  is  an 
honest  version,  the  fruit  of  the  best  scholarship 
of  the  times,  without  prejudice. 

II.  A  second  trait  of  the  work  as  a  version  is 
its  remarkable  accuracy.  It  is  surprising  that 
with  all  the  new  light  coming  from  early  docu- 
ments, with  all  the  new  discoveries  that  have 
been  made,  the  latest  revision  needed  to  make 

72 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

so  few  changes,  and  those  for  the  most  part 
minor  ones.  There  are,  to  be  sure,  some  im- 
portant changes,  as  we  shall  see  later;  the  won- 
der is  that  there  are  not  many  more.  The  King 
James  version  had,  to  be  sure,  the  benefit  of 
all  the  earlier  controversy.  The  whole  ground 
had  been  really  fought  over  in  the  centuries 
before,  and  most  of  the  questions  had  been  dis- 
cussed. They  frankly  made  use  of  all  the  earlier 
controversy.  They  say  in  their  preface:  "Truly, 
good  Christian  reader,  we  never  thought  from 
the  beginning  that  we  should  need  to  make  a 
new  translation,  nor  yet  to  make  a  bad  one  a 
good  one,  but  to  make  a  good  one  better.  That 
hath  been  our  endeavor,  that  our  work."  Also, 
they  had  the  advantage  of  deliberation.  This 
was  the  first  version  that  had  been  made  which 
had  such  sanction  that  they  could  take  their 
time,  and  in  which  they  had  no  reason  to  fear 
that  the  results  would  endanger  them.  They 
say  in  their  preface  that  they  had  not  run  over 
their  work  with  that  "posting  haste"  that  had 
marked  the  Septuagint,  if  the  saying  was  true 
that  they  did  it  all  in  seventy-two  days;  nor 
were  they  "barred  and  hindered  from  going  over 
it  again,"  as  Jerome  himself  said  he  had  been, 
since  as  soon  as  he  wrote  any  part  "it  was 
snatched  away  from  him  and  published";   nor 

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THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

were  they  "working  in  a  new  field,"  as  Origen 
was  when  he  wrote  his  first  commentary  on  the 
Bible.  Both  these  things — their  taking  advan- 
tage of  earlier  controversies  which  had  cleared 
many  differences,  and  their  deliberation — were 
supplemented  by  a  third  which  gave  great  ac- 
curacy to  the  version.  That  was  their  adoption 
of  the  principle  of  all  early  translators,  perhaps 
worded  best  by  Purvey,  who  completed  the 
Wiclif  version:  "The  best  translation  is  to 
translate  after  the  sentence,  and  not  only  after 
the  words,  so  that  the  sentence  be  as  open  in 
English  as  in  Latin."  That  makes  for  accuracy. 
It  is  quite  impossible  to  put  any  language  over, 
word  for  word,  into  another  without  great  in- 
accuracy. But  when  the  translators  sought  to 
take  the  sentence  of  the  Hebrew  or  the  Greek 
and  put  it  into  an  exactly  equivalent  English 
sentence,  they  had  larger  play  for  their  language 
and  they  had  a  fairer  field  for  accuracy.  These 
were  the  three  great  facts  which  made  the  re- 
markable accuracy  possible,  and  it  may  be 
interesting  to  note  three  corresponding  results 
which  show  the  effort  they  made  to  be  absolute- 
ly accurate  and  fair  in  their  translation. 

The  first  of  those  results  is  visible  in  the 
italicized  words  which  they  used.  In  the  King 
James  version  words  in  italics  are  a  frank  ac- 

74 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

knowledgment  that  the  Greek  or  the  Hebrew 
cannot  be  put  into  Enghsh  literally.  These  are 
English  words  which  are  put  in  because  it  seems 
impossible  to  express  the  meaning  originally  in- 
tended without  certain  additions  which  the 
reader  must  take  into  account  in  his  under- 
standing of  the  version.  We  need  not  think 
far  to  see  how  necessary  that  was.  The  arrange- 
ment of  words  in  Greek,  for  example,  is  differ- 
ent from  that  in  English.  The  Greek  of  the 
first  verse  of  the  Gospel  of  John  reads  that  "God 
was  the  Word,"  but  the  English  makes  its  sen- 
tences in  a  reversed  form,  and  it  really  means, 
"the  Word  was  God."  So  the  Greek  uses  par- 
ticles where  the  English  does  not.  Often  it 
would  say  "the  God"  where  we  would  say 
simply  "God."  Those  particles  are  ordinarily 
wisely  omitted.  So  the  Greek  does  not  use  verbs 
at  some  points  where  it  is  quite  essential  that 
the  English  shall  use  them.  But  it  is  only  fair 
that  in  reading  a  version  of  the  Scripture  we 
should  know  what  words  have  been  put  in  by 
translators  in  their  effort  to  make  the  version 
clear  to  us;  and  the  italicized  words  of  the  King 
James  version  are  a  frank  effort  to  be  accurate 
and  yet  fair. 

The  second  result  which  shows  their  effort  at 
accuracy  is  in  the  marginal  readings.     Most  of 

75 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

these  are  optional  readings,  and  are  preceded 
by  the  word  "or,"  which  indicates  that  one  may 
read  what  is  in  the  text,  or  substitute  for  it  what 
is  in  the  margin  with  equal  fairness  to  the 
original.  But  sometimes,  instead  of  that  fa- 
miliar "or,"  occur  letters  which  indicate  that 
the  Hebrew  or  the  Greek  literally  means  some- 
thing else  than  what  is  given  in  the  English 
text,  and  what  it  literally  means  is  given  in  the 
margin.  The  translators  thereby  say  to  the 
reader  that  if  he  can  take  that  literal  meaning 
and  put  it  into  the  text  so  that  it  is  intelligible 
to  him,  here  is  his  chance.  As  for  them,  they 
think  that  the  whole  context  or  meaning  of  the 
sentence  rather  involves  the  use  of  the  phrase 
which  they  put  into  the  text.  But  the  marginal 
references  are  of  great  interest  to  most  of  us 
as  showing  how  these  men  were  frank  to  say 
that  there  were  some  things  they  could  not 
settle.  They  were  rather  blamed  for  it,  chiefly 
by  those  who  had  committed  themselves  to  the 
Douai  version,  which  has  no  marginal  readings, 
on  the  ground  that  the  translation  ought  to  be 
as  authoritative  as  the  original.  The  King 
James  translators  repudiate  that  theory  and 
frankly  say  that  the  reason  they  put  these 
words  in  the  margin  was  because  they  were  not 
sure  what  was  the  best  reading.     In  the  margin 

76 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

of  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  there  are  eighty- 
four  such  marginal  readings,  and  the  proportion 
will  hold  throughout  most  of  the  version.  They 
were  only  trying  to  be  accurate  and  to  give  every 
one  a  chance  to  make  up  his  own  mind  where 
there  was  fair  reason  to  question  their  results. 

The  third  thing  which  shows  their  effort  at 
accuracy  is  their  explicit  avoidance  of  uni- 
formity in  translating  the  same  word.  They 
tried  to  put  the  meaning  into  English  terms. 
So,  as  they  say,  the  one  word  might  become 
either  "journeying"  or  "traveling";  one  word 
might  be  "thinking"  or  "supposing,"  "joy"  or 
"gladness,"  "eternal"  or  "everlasting."  One 
of  the  reasons  they  give  for  this  is  quaint  enough 
to  quote.  They  said  they  did  not  think  it  right 
to  honor  some  words  by  giving  them  a  place 
forever  in  the  Bible,  while  they  virtually  said 
to  other  equally  good  words:  Get  ye  hence  and 
be  banished  forever.  They  quote  a  "certaine 
great  philosopher"  who  said  that  those  logs 
were  happy  which  became  images  and  were  wor- 
shiped, while  other  logs  as  good  as  they  were 
laid  behind  the  fire  to  be  burned.  So  they 
sought  to  use  as  many  English  words,  familiar 
in  speech  and  commonly  understood,  as  they 
might,  lest  they  should  impoverish  the  language, 
and  so  lose  out  of  use  good  words.     There  is  no 

77 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

doubt  that  in  this  effort  both  to  save  the  lan- 
guage, and  to  represent  accurately  the  meaning 
of  the  original,  they  sometimes  overdid  that 
avoidance  of  uniformity.  There  were  times 
when  it  would  have  been  well  if  the  words  had 
been  more  consistently  translated.  For  example, 
in  the  epistle  of  James  ii:  2,  3,  you  have  goodly 
"apparel,"  vile  "raiment,"  and  gay  "clothing," 
all  translating  one  Greek  word.  Our  revised 
versions  have  sought  to  correct  such  incon- 
sistencies. But  it  was  all  done  in  the  interest 
of  an  accuracy  that  should  yet  not  be  a  slavish 
uniformity. 

This  will  be  enough  to  illustrate  what  was 
meant  in  speaking  of  the  effort  of  the  translators 
to  achieve  accuracy  in  their  version. 

III.  The  third  marked  trait  of  the  work  as 
a  version  of  the  Scripture  is  its  striking  blending 
of  dignity  and  popularity  in  its  language.  At 
any  period  of  a  living  language,  there  are  three 
levels  of  speech.  There  is  an  upper  level  used 
by  the  clearest  thinkers  and  most  careful  writers, 
always  correct  according  to  the  laws  of  the  lan- 
guage, generally  somewhat  remote  from  common 
life — the  habitual  speech  of  the  more  intellect- 
ual. There  is  also  the  lower  level  used  by  the 
least  intellectual,  frequently  incorrect  according 
to  the  laws  of  the  language,  rough,  containing 

78 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

what  we  now  call  "slang,"  the  talk  of  a  knot  of 
men  on  the  street  corner  waiting  for  a  new  bulle- 
tin of  a  ball  game,  cheap  in  words,  impoverished 
in  synonyms,  using  one  word  to  express  any 
number  of  ideas,  as  slang  always  does.  Those 
two  levels  are  really  farther  apart  than  we  are 
apt  to  realize.  A  book  or  an  article  on  the  upper 
level  will  be  uninteresting  and  unintelligible  to 
the  people  on  the  lower  level.  And  a  book  in 
the  language  of  the  lower  level  is  offensive  and 
disgusting  to  those  of  the  upper  level.  That  is 
not  because  the  ideas  are  so  remote,  but  because 
the  characteristic  expressions  are  almost  un- 
familiar to  the  people  of  the  different  levels. 
The  more  thoughtful  people  read  the  abler 
journals  of  the  day;  they  read  the  editorials  or 
the  more  extended  articles;  they  read  also  the 
great  literature.  If  they  take  up  the  sporting 
page  of  a  newspaper  to  read  the  account  of  a 
ball  game  written  in  the  style  of  the  lower  level 
of  thought,  where  words  are  misused  in  disre- 
gard of  the  laws  of  the  language,  and  where  one 
word  is  made  to  do  duty  for  a  great  many  ideas, 
they  do  it  solely  for  amusement.  They  could 
never  think  of  finding  their  mental  stimulus  in 
that  sort  of  thing.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
people  who  find  in  that  kind  of  reading  their 
real  interest.     If  they  should  take  up  a  thought- 

79 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

ful  editorial  or  a  book  of  essays,  they  would 
ndt  know  what  the  words  mean  in  the  connection 
in  which  they  are  used.  They  speak  a  good  deal 
about  the  vividness  of  this  lower-level  language, 
about  its  popularity;  they  speak  with  a  sneer 
about  the  stiffness  and  dignity  of  that  upper 
level. 

These  are,  however,  only  the  two  extremes, 
for  there  is  always  a  middle  level  where  move 
words  common  to  both,  where  are  avoided  the 
words  peculiar  to  each.  It  is  the  language  that 
most  people  speak.  It  is  the  language  of  the 
street,  and  also  of  the  study,  of  the  parlor,  and 
of  the  shop.  But  it  has  little  that  is  peculiar 
to  either  of  those  other  levels,  or  to  any  one 
place  where  a  man  may  live  his  life  and  do  his 
talking.  If  we  illustrate  from  other  literature, 
we  can  say  that  Macaulay's  essays  move  on  the 
upper  level,  and  that  much  of  the  so-called  popu- 
lar literature  of  our  day  moves  on  the  lower 
level,  while  Dickens  moves  on  the  middle  level, 
which  means  that  men  whose  habitual  language 
is  that  of  the  upper  and  the  lower  levels  can  both 
enter  into  the  spirit  of  his  writing. 

Now,  originally  the  Bible  moved  on  that  mid- 
dle level.  It  was  a  colloquial  book.  The  lan- 
guages in  which  it  first  appeared  were  not  in  the 
classic  forms.     They  are  the  languages  of  the 

80 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

streets  where  they  were  written.  The  Hebrew 
is  almost  our  only  example  of  the  tongue  at  its 
period,  but  it  is  not  a  literary  language  in  any 
case.  The  Greek  of  the  New  Testament  is  not 
the  Eolic,  the  language  of  the  lyrics  of  Sappho; 
nor  the  Doric,  the  language  of  war-songs  or  the 
chorus  in  the  drama;  nor  the  Ionic,  the  dialect  of 
epic  poetry;  but  the  Attic  Greek,  and  a  cor- 
rupted form  of  that,  a  form  corrupted  by  use  in 
the  streets  and  in  the  markets. 

That  was  the  original  language  of  the  Bible, 
a  colloquial  language.  But  that  fact  does  not 
determine  the  translation.  Whether  it  shall  be 
put  into  the  English  language  on  the  upper 
level  or  on  the  lower  level  is  not  so  readily  de- 
termined. Efforts  have  been  made  to  put  it 
into  the  language  of  each  level.  We  have  a  so- 
called  elegant  translation,  and  we  have  the 
Bible  cast  into  the  speech  of  the  common  day. 
The  King  James  version  is  on  the  middle  level. 
It  is  a  striking  blending  of  the  dignity  of  the 
upper  level  and  the  popularity  of  the  lower  level. 
•  There  is  tremendous  significance  in  the  fact 
that  these  men  were  making  a  version  which 
should  be  for  all  people,  making  it  out  in  the 
open  day  with  the  king  and  all  the  people  behind 
them.  It  was  the  first  independent  version 
which  had  been  made  under  such  favorable  cir- 

6  81 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

cumstances.  Most  of  the  versions  had  been 
made  in  private  by  men  who  were  imperiHng 
themselves  in  their  work.  They  did  not  expect 
the  Book  to  pass  into  common  use;  they  knew 
that  the  men  who  received  the  result  of  their 
work  would  have  to  be  those  who  were  earnest 
enough  to  go  into  secret  places  for  their  reading. 
But  here  was  a  changed  condition.  These  men 
were  making  a  version  by  royal  authority,  a 
version  awaited  with  eager  interest  by  the  peo- 
ple in  general.  The  result  is  that  it  is  a  people's 
Book.  Its  phrases  are  those  of  common  life, 
those  that  had  lived  up  to  that  time.  It  is  not 
in  the  peculiar  language  of  the  times.  If  you 
want  to  know  the  language  of  their  own  times, 
read  these  translators'  servile,  unhistorical  dedi- 
cation to  the  king,  or  their  far  nobler  preface  to 
the  reader.  That  is  the  language  peculiar  to 
their  own  day.  But  the  language  of  the  Bible 
itself  is  that  form  which  had  lived  its  way  into 
common  use.  One  hundred  years  after  Wiclif 
it  yet  speaks  his  language  in  large  part,  for 
that  part  had  really  lived.  In  the  Bibliotheca 
Pastorum  Ruskin  makes  comment  on  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  and  his  metrical  version  of  the  Psalms  in 
these  words:  "Sir  Philip  Sidney  will  use  any 
cow-boy  or  tinker  words  if  they  only  help  him 
to  say  precisely  in  English  what  David  said  in 

82 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Hebrew;  impressed  the  while  himself  so  vividly 
of  the  majesty  of  the  thought  itself  that  no 
tinker's  language  can  lower  it  or  vulgarize  it  in 
his  mind."  The  King  James  translators  were 
most  eager  to  say  what  the  original  said,  and 
to  say  it  so  that  the  common  man  could  well 
understand  it,  and  yet  so  that  it  should  not  be 
vulgarized  or  cheapened  by  adoption  of  cheap 
words. 

In  his  History  Hallam  passes  some  rather 
sharp  strictures  on  the  English  of  the  King  James 
version,  remarking  that  it  abounds  in  uncouth 
phrases  and  in  words  whose  meaning  is  not 
familiar,  and  that  whatever  is  to  be  said  it  is, 
at  any  rate,  not  in  the  English  of  the  time  of 
King  James.  And  that  latter  saying  is  true, 
though  it  must  be  remembered  that  Hallam 
wrote  in  the  period  when  no  English  was  recog- 
nized by  literary  people  except  that  of  the  upper 
level,  when  they  did  not  know  that  these  so- 
called  uncouth  phrases  were  to  return  to  com- 
mon use.  To-day  it  would  be  absurd  to  say 
that  the  Bible  is  full  of  uncouth  phrases.  Pro- 
fessor Cook  has  said  that  "the  movement  of 
English  diction,  which  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  was  on  the  whole  away 
from  the  Bible,  now  returns  with  ever-accelerat- 
ing speed  toward  it."     If  the  phrases  went  out, 

83 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

they  came  back.  But  it  is  true  that  the  Enghsh 
of  the  King  James  version  is  not  that  of  the  time 
of  James  I.,  only  because  it  is  the  English  of  the 
history  of  the  language.  It  has  not  immortalized 
for  us  the  tongue  of  its  times,  because  it  has 
taken  that  tongue  from  its  beginning  and  deter- 
mined its  form.  It  carefully  avoided  words 
that  were  counted  coarse.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  did  not  commit  itself  to  words  which  were 
simply  refinements  of  verbal  construction.  That, 
I  say,  is  a  general  fact. 

It  can  be  illustrated  in  one  or  two  ways.  For 
instance,  a  word  which  has  become  common  to 
us  is  the  neuter  possessive  pronoun  "its."  That 
word  does  not  occur  in  the  edition  of  1611,  and 
appears  first  in  an  edition  in  the  printing  of 
1660.  In  place  of  it,  in  the  edition  of  1611,  the 
more  dignified  personal  pronoun  "his"  or  "her" 
is  always  used,  and  it  continues  for  the  most 
part  in  our  familiar  version.  In  this  verse  you 
notice  it:  "Look  not  upon  the  wine  when  it  is 
red;  when  it  giveth  his  color  aright  in  the  cup." 
In  the  Levitical  law  especially,  where  reference 
is  made  to  sacrifices,  to  the  articles  of  the  furni- 
ture of  the  tabernacle,  or  other  neuter  objects, 
the  masculine  pronoun  is  almost  invariably 
used.  In  the  original  it  was  invariably  used. 
You  see  the  other  form  in  the  familiar  verse 

84 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

about  charity,  that  it  "doth  not  behave  itself 
unseemly,  seeketh  not  her  own,  is  not  easily 
provoked."  Now,  there  is  evidence  that  the 
neuter  possessive  pronoun  was  just  coming  into 
use.  Shakespeare  uses  it  ten  times  in  his  works, 
but  ten  times  only,  and  a  number  of  writers  do 
not  use  it  at  all.  It  was,  to  be  sure,  a  word  be- 
ginning to  be  heard  on  the  street,  and  for  the 
most  part  on  the  lower  level.  The  King  James 
translators  never  used  it.  The  dignified  word 
was  that  masculine  or  feminine  pronoun,  and 
they  always  use  it  in  place  of  the  neuter. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  was  a  word  which  was 
coming  into  use  on  the  upper  level  which  has  be- 
come common  property  to  us  now.  It  is  the  word 
"anxiety."  It  is  not  certain  just  when  it  came 
into  use.  I  believe  Shakespeare  does  not  use  it; 
and  it  occurs  very  little  in  the  literature  of  the 
times.  Probably  it  was  known  to  these  trans- 
lators. When  they  came,  however,  to  trans- 
lating a  word  which  now  we  translate  by  "anx- 
ious" or  "anxiety"  they  did  not  use  that  word. 
It  was  not  familiar.  They  used  instead  the  word 
which  represented  the  idea  for  the  people  of  the 
middle  level;  they  used  the  word  "thought." 
So  they  said,  "Take  no  thought  for  the  mor- 
row," where  we  would  say,  "Be  not  anxious  for 
the  morrow."     There  is  a  contemporary  docu- 

85 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

ment  which  illustrates  how  that  word  "thought" 
was  commonly  used,  in  which  we  read:  "In  five 
hundred  years  only  two  queens  died  in  child 
birth.  Queen  Catherine  Parr  having  died  rather 
of  thought."  That  was  written  about  the  time 
of  the  King  James  version,  and  "thought" 
evidently  means  worry  or  anxiety.  Neither  of 
those  words,  the  neuter  possessive  pronoun  or 
the  new  word  "anxious,"  got  into  the  King  James 
version.  One  was  coming  into  proper  use  from 
the  lower  level,  and  one  was  coming  into  proper 
use  from  the  upper  level.  They  had  not  yet 
so  arrived  that  they  could  be  used. 

One  result  of  this  care  to  preserve  dignity  and 
also  popularity  appears  in  the  fact  that  so  few 
words  of  the  English  version  have  become  obso- 
lete. Words  disappear  upward  out  of  the  upper 
level  or  downward  out  of  the  lower  level,  but  it 
takes  a  long  time  for  a  word  to  get  out  of  a 
language  once  it  is  in  confirmed  use  on  the  mid- 
dle level.  Of  course,  the  version  itself  has  tended 
to  keep  words  familiar;  but  no  book,  no  matter 
how  widely  used,  can  prevent  some  words  from 
passing  off  the  stage  or  from  changing  their 
meaning  so  noticeably  that  they  are  virtually 
different  words.  Yet  even  in  those  words  which 
do  not  become  common  there  is  very  little  ten- 
dency to  obsolescence  in  the  King  James  version. 

86 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

More  words  of  Shakespeare  have  become  obso- 
lete or  have  changed  their  meanings  than  in  the 
King  James  version. 

There  is  one  interesting  illustration  to  which 
attention  has  been  called  by  Dr.  Davidson, 
which  is  interesting.  In  the  ninth  chapter  of 
the  Judges,  where  we  are  told  about  Abimelech, 
the  fifty-third  verse  reads  that  a  woman  cast  a 
stone  down  from  the  wall  and  "all  to  break  his 
skull."  That  is  confessedly  rather  obscure. 
Our  ordinary  understanding  of  it  would  be  that 
she  did  that  for  no  other  purpose  than  just  to 
break  the  skull  of  Abimelech.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  that  expression  is  a  printer's  bungling  way 
of  giving  a  word  which  has  become  obsolete  in 
the  original  form.  When  the  King  James  trans- 
lators wrote  that,  they  used  the  word  "alto," 
which  is  evidently  the  beginning  of  "alto- 
gether," or  wholly  or  utterly,  and  what  they 
meant  was  that  she  threw  the  stone  and  utterly 
broke  his  skull.  But  that  abbreviated  form  of 
the  word  passed  out  of  use,  and  when  later 
printers — not  much  later — came  to  it  they  did 
not  know  what  it  meant  and  divided  it  as  it 
stands  in  our  present  text.  It  is  one  of  the  few 
words  that  have  become  obsolete.  But  so  few 
are  there  of  them,  that  it  was  made  a  rule  of 
the  Revised  Version  not  to  admit  to  the  new 

87 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

version,  where  it  could  be  avoided,  any  word 
not  already  found  in  the  Authorized  Version, 
and  also  not  to  omit  from  the  Revised  Version, 
except  under  pressure  of  necessity,  any  word 
which  occurred  there.  It  is  largely  this  blending 
of  dignity  and  popularity  that  has  made  the 
King  James  version  so  influential  in  English 
literature.  It  talks  the  language  not  of  the 
upper  level  nor  of  the  lower  level,  but  of  that 
middle  level  where  all  meet  sometimes  and 
where  most  men  are  all  the  while. 

These  are  great  traits  to  mark  a  book,  any 
book,  but  especially  a  translation  —  that  it  is 
honest,  that  it  is  accurate,  and  that  its  language 
blends  dignity  and  popularity  so  that  it  lowers 
the  speech  of  none.  They  are  all  conspicuous 
traits  of  our  familiar  version  of  the  Bible,  and 
in  them  in  part  lies  its  power  with  the  generations 
of  these  three  centuries  that  have  followed  its 
appearance. 


LECTURE  III 

THE    KING    JAMES    VERSION    AS    ENGLISH 
LITERATURE 

ET  it  be  plainly  said  at  the  very  first  that 
when  we  speak  of  the  literary  phases  of 
the  Bible  we  are  not  discussing  the  book  in  its 
historic  meaning.  It  was  never  meant  as  liter- 
ature in  our  usual  sense  of  the  word.  Nothing 
could  have  been  further  from  the  thought  of 
the  men  who  wrote  it,  whoever  they  were  and 
whenever  they  wrote,  than  that  they  were 
making  a  world  literature.  They  had  the  char- 
acteristics of  men  who  do  make  great  literature — 
they  had  clear  vision  and  a  great  passion  for 
truth;  they  loved  their  fellows  mightily,  and 
they  were  far  more  concerned  to  be  understood 
than  to  speak.  These  are  traits  that  go  to  make 
great  writers.  But  it  was  never  in  their  minds 
that  they  were  making  a  world  literature.  The 
Bible  is  a  book  of  religious  significance  from 
first  to  last.  If  it  utterly  broke  down  by  the 
tests  of  literature,  it  might  be  as  great  a  book 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

as  it  needs  to  be.  It  is  a  subordinate  fact  that 
by  the  tests  of  literature  it  proves  also  to  be 
great.  Prof.  Gardiner,  of  Harvard,  whose  book 
called  The  Bible  as  English  Literature  makes 
other  such  works  almost  unnecessary,  frankly 
bases  his  judgment  on  the  result  of  critical  study 
of  the  Bible,  but  he  serves  fair  warning  that  he 
takes  inspiration  for  granted,  and  thinks  it 
'*  obvious  that  no  literary  criticism  of  the  Bible 
could  hope  for  success  which  was  not  reverent 
in  tone.  A  critic  who  should  approach  it  super- 
ciliously or  arrogantly  would  miss  all  that  has 
given  the  Book  its  power  as  literature  and  its 
lasting  and  universal  appeal."^  Farther  over 
in  his  book  he  goes  on  to  say  that  when  we 
search  for  the  causes  of  the  feelings  which  made 
the  marvelous  style  of  the  Bible  a  necessity, 
explanation  can  make  but  a  short  step,  for  "we 
are  in  a  realm  where  the  only  ultimate  explana- 
tion is  the  fact  of  inspiration;  and  that  is  only 
another  way  of  saying  that  we  are  in  the  pres- 
ence of  forces  above  and  beyond  our  present 
human  understanding."^ 

However,  we  may  fairly  make  distinction  be- 
tween the  Bible  as  an  original  work  and  the 
Bible  as  a  work  of  English  literature.  For  the 
Bible  as  an  original  work  is  not  so  much  a  book 

*  Preface,  p.  vii.  ^  Page  124. 

90 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

as  a  series  of  books,  the  work  of  many  men  work- 
ing separately  over  a  period  of  at  least  fifteen 
hundred  years,  and  these  men  unconscious  for 
the  most  part  of  any  purpose  of  agreement. 
This  series  of  books  is  made  one  book  in  the 
original  by  the  unity  of  its  general  purpose  and 
the  agreement  of  its  parts.  The  Bible  in  Eng- 
lish k^  however,  not  a  series  of  books,  but  prop- 
erly one  book,  the  work  of  six  small  groups  of 
men  working  in  conscious  unity  through  a  short 
period  of  years.  And  while  there  is  variation  in 
style,  while  there  are  inequalities  in  result,  yet 
it  stands  as  a  single  piece  of  English  literature. 
It  has  a  literary  style  of  its  own,  even  though 
it  feels  powerfully  the  Hebrew  influence  through- 
out. And  while  it  would  not  be  a  condemnation 
)f  the  Bible  if  it  were  not  great  literature  in 
English  or  elsewhere,  it  is  still  part  of  its  power 
that  by  literary  standards  alone  it  measures 
large. 

It  is  so  that  men  of  letters  have  rated  it  since 
it  came  into  existence.  "It  holds  a  place  of 
pre-eminence  in  the  republic  of  letters."  When 
John  Richard  Green  comes  to  deal  with  it,  he 
says:  "As  a  mere  literary  monument  the  English 
\y  version  of  the  Bible  remains  the  noblest  language 
of  the  English  tongue,  while  its  perpetual  use 
made  of  it  from  the  instant  of  its  appearance 

91 


rt 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

the  standard  of  our  language."^  And  in  Ma- 
caulay's  essay  on  Dryden,  while  he  is  deploring 
the  deterioration  of  English  style,  he  yet  says 
that  in  the  period  when  the  English  language 
was  imperiled  there  appeared  "the  English 
Bible,  a  book  which  if  everything  else  in  our 
language  should  perish  would  alone  suffice  to 
show  the  extent  of  its  beauty  and  power." 

The  mere  fact  that  the  English  Bible  contains 
a  religion  does  not  affect  its  standing  as  litera- 
ture. Homer  and  Virgil  are  Greek  and  Roman 
classics,  yet  each  of  them  contains  a  definite 
religion.  You  can  build  up  the  religious  faith 
of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  out  of  their  great 
literature.  So  you  can  build  up  the  religious 
faith  of  the  Hebrews  and  the  early  Christians 
from  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  "  For  fifteen 
centuries  a  Hebrew  Book,  the  Bible,  contained 
almost  the  whole  literature  and  learning  of  a 
whole  nation,"  while  it  was  also  the  book  of 
their  religion. 

As  literature,  however,  apart  from  its  religious 
connection,  it  is  subject  to  any  of  the  criteria 
of  literature.  In  so  far  it  is  the  fair  subject  of 
criticism.  It  must  stand  or  fall  when  it  enters 
the  realm  of  literature  by  the  standards  of  other 
books.     Indeed,   many   questions   regarding   its 

1  Short  History  of  the  English  People,  Book  vii,  chap.  i. 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

dates,  the  authorship  of  unassigned  portions,  the 
meaning  of  its  disputed  passages  may  be 
answered  most  fairly  by  literary  tests.  That 
is  always  liable  to  abuse;  but  literary  tests 
are  always  liable  to  that.  There  have  been 
enough  blunders  made  in  the  knowledge  of  us 
all  to  require  us  to  go  carefully  in  such  a  matter. 
The  Waverley  Novels  were  published  anonymous- 
ly, and,  while  some  suspected  Scott  at  once, 
others  were  entirely  clear  that  on  the  ground  of 
literary  style  his  authorship  was  entirely  im- 
possible !  Let  a  magazine  publish  an  anonymous 
serial,  and  readers  everywhere  are  quick  to 
recognize  the  writer  from  his  literary  style  and 
his  general  ideas,  but  each  group  "recognizes" 
a  different  writer.  Arguments  based  chiefly  on 
style  overlook  the  large  personal  equation  in  all 
writing.  The  same  writer  has  more  than  one 
natural  style.  It  is  not  until  he  becomes  in  a 
certain  sense  affected — grows  proud  of  his  pe- 
culiarities— that  he  settles  down  to  one  form. 
And  it  is  quite  impossible  to  assign  a  book  to 
any  narrow  historical  period  on  the  ground  of 
its  style  alone.  But  though  large  emphasis 
could  be  laid  upon  the  literary  merits  of  the 
Bible  to  the  obscuring  of  its  other  more  impor- 
tant merits,  it  is  yet  true  that  from  the  literary 
point  of  view  the  Bible  stands  as  an  English 

93 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

classic,  indeed,  as  the  outstanding  English 
classic.  To  acknowledge  ignorance  of  it  is  to 
confess  one's  self  ignorant  of  our  greatest  lite- 
rary possession. 
[y'  A  moment  ago  it  was  said  that  as  a  piece  of 
literature  the  Bible  must  accept  the  standards 
of  other  literary  books.  For  all  present  pur- 
poses we  can  define  great  literature  as  worthy 
written  expression  of  great  ideas.  If  we  may 
take  the  word  "  written "  for  granted,  the  rough 
definition  becomes  this:  that  great  literature  is 
the  worthy  expression  of  great  ideas.  Works 
which  claim  to  be  great  in  literature  may  fail 
of  greatness  in  either  half  of  that  test.  Petty, 
local,  unimportant  ideas  may  be  well  clothed, 
or  great  ideas  may  be  unworthily  expressed;  in 
either  case  the  literature  is  poor.  It  is  not  un- 
til great  ideas  are  wedded  to  worthy  expression 
that  literature  becomes  great.  Failure  at  one 
end  or  the  other  will  explain  the  failure  of  most 
of  the  work  that  seeks  to  be  accounted  literature. 
The  literary  value  of  a  book  cannot  be  deter- 
mined by  its  style  alone.  It  is  possible  to 
say  nothing  gracefully,  even  with  dignity,  sym- 
metry, rhythm;  but  it  is  not  possible  to  make 
literature  without  ideas.  Abiding  literature  de- 
mands large  ideas  worthily  expressed.  Now, 
of  course,  "large"  and  "small"  are  not  words 

94 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

that  are  usually  applied  to  the  measurement  of 
ideas;  but  we  can  make  them  seem  appropriate 
here.  Let  us  mean  that  an  idea  is  large  or 
small  according  to  its  breadth  of  interest  to  the 
race  and  its  length  of  interest  to  the  race.  If 
there  is  an  idea  which  is  of  value  to  all  the 
members  of  the  human  race  to-day,  and  which 
does  not  lose  its  value  as  the  generations  come 
and  go,  that  is  the  largest  possible  idea  within 
human  thought.  Transient  literature  may  do 
without  those  large  ideas.  A  gifted  young  re- 
porter may  describe  a  dog  fight  or  a  presidential 
nominating  convention  in  such  terms  as  lift  his 
article  out  of  carelessness  and  hasty  newspaper 
writing  into  the  realm  of  real  literature;  but  it 
cannot  become  abiding  literature.  It  has  not  a 
large  enough  idea  to  keep  it  alive.  And  to  any 
one  who  loves  worthy  expression  there  is  a  sense 
of  degradation  in  the  use  of  fine  literary  powers 
for  the  description  of  purely  transient  local 
events.  It  is  always  regrettable  when  men  with 
literary  skill  are  available  for  the  description  of 
a  ball  game,  or  are  exploited  as  worthy  writers 
about  a  prize-fight.  If  a  man  has  power  to 
express  ideas  well,  he  ought  to  use  that  power 
for  the  expression  of  great  ideas. 

Many  of  us  have  seen  a  dozen  books  hailed 
as  classic  novels  sure  to  live,  each  of  them  the 

95 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

great  American  novel  at  last,  the  author  to  be 
compared  with  Dickens  and  Thackeray  and 
George  Eliot.  And  the  books  have  gone  the 
way  of  all  the  earth.  With  some,  the  trouble 
is  a  weak,  involved,  or  otherwise  poor  style. 
With  most  the  trouble  is  lack  of  real  ideas. 
Charles  Dickens,  to  be  sure,  does  deal  with 
boarding-schools  in  England,  with  conditions 
which  in  their  local  form  do  not  recur  and  are 
not  familiar  to  us;  but  he  deals  with  them  as 
involving  a  great  principle  of  the  relation  of 
society  to  youth,  and  so  David  Copperfield  or 
Oliver  Twist  becomes  a  book  for  the  life  of  all 
of  us,  and  for  all  time.  And  even  here  it  is 
evident  that  not  all  of  Dickens's  work  will  live, 
but  only  that  which  is  least  narrowly  local  and 
is  most  broadly  human. 

There  is  a  further  striking  illustration  in  a 
familiar  event  in  American  history.  Most  young 
people  are  required  to  study  Webster's  speech 
in  reply  to  Robert  Hayne  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  using  it  as  a  model  in  literary  construc- 
tion. The  speech  of  Hayne  is  lost  to  our  in- 
terest, yet  the  fact  is  that  Hayne  himself  was 
gifted  in  expression,  that  by  the  standards  of 
simple  style  his  speech  compares  favorably  with 
that  of  Webster.  Yet  reading  Webster's  reply 
takes  one  not  to  the  local  condition  which  was 

96 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

concerning  Hayne,  but  to  a  great  principle  of 
liberty  and  union.  He  shows  that  principle 
emerging  in  history;  the  local  touches  are  lost 
to  thought  as  he  goes  on,  and  a  truth  is  expressed 
in  terms  of  history  which  will  be  valid  until 
history  is  ended.  It  is  not  simply  Webster's 
style;  it  is  that  with  his  great  idea  which  made 
his  reply  memorable. 

That  neither  ideas  nor  style  alone  can  keep 
literature  alive  is  shown  by  literary  history  after 
Shakespeare.  Just  after  him  you  have  the 
"mellifluous  poets"  of  the  next  period  on  the 
one  hand,  with  style  enough,  but  with  such 
attenuated  ideas  that  their  work  has  died.  Who 
knows  Drayton  or  Brown  or  Wither?  On  the 
other  hand,  there  came  the  metaphysicians  with 
ideas  in  abundance,  but  not  style,  and  their 
works  have  died. 

Here,  then,  is  the  English  Bible  becoming  the 
chief  English  classic  by  the  wedding  of  great 
ideas  to  worthy  expression.  From  one  point  of 
view  this  early  seventeenth  century  was  an 
opportune  time  for  making  such  a  classic. 
Theology  was  a  popular  subject.  Men's  minds 
had  found  a  new  freedom,  and  they  used  it  to 
discuss  great  themes.  They  even  began  to  sing. 
The  reign  of  Elizabeth  had  prepared  the  way. 
The  English  scholar  Hoare  traces  this  new  liberty 

7  97 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

to  the  sailing  away  of  the  Armada  and  the  re- 
leasing of  England  from  the  perpetual  dread  of 
Spanish  invasion.  He  says  that  the  birds  felt 
the  free  air,  and  sang  as  they  had  never  sung 
before  and  as  they  have  not  often  sung  since. 
But  this  was  not  restricted  to  the  birds  of 
English  song.  It  was  a  period  of  remarkable 
awakening  in  the  whole  intellectual  life  of 
England,  and  that  intellectual  life  was  directing 
itself  among  the  common  people  to  religion. 
Another  English  writer,  Eaton,  says  a  profounder 
word  in  tracing  the  awakening  to  the  reforma- 
tion, saying  that  it  "could  not  fail,  from  the 
very  nature  of  it,  to  tinge  the  literature  of  the 
Elizabethan  era.  It  gave  a  logical  and  disputa- 
tious character  to  the  age  and  produced  men 
mighty  in  the  Scriptures."^  A  French  visitor 
went  home  disgusted  because  people  talked  of 
nothing  but  theology  in  England.  Grotius 
thought  all  the  people  of  England  were  theo- 
logians. James's  chief  pride  was  his  theologi- 
cal learning.  It  did  not  prove  difficult  to  find 
half  a  hundred  men  in  small  England  instantly 
recognized  as  experts  in  Scripture  study.  The 
people  were  ready  to  welcome  a  book  of  great 
ideas.  Let  us  pass  by  those  ideas  a  moment, 
remembering  that  they  are  not  enough  in  them- 

^  T.  R.  Eaton,  Shalce^pears  and  the  Bible,  p.  2. 
98 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

selves  to  give  the  work  literary  value,  and  turn 
our  minds  to  the  style  of  the  English  Bible. 
^     From  this  point  of  view  the  times  were  not 
^  perfectly  opportune  for  a  piece  of  pure  English 
literature,  though  it  was  the  time  which  pro- 
duced Shakespeare.     A  definite  movement  was 
on  to  refine  the  language  by  foreign  decorations. 
Not   even   Shakespeare   avoids   it   always.     No 
writer  of  the  time  avoids  it  wholly.     The  dedi- 
cation of  the  King  James  version  shows  that 
these  scholars  themselves  did  not  avoid  it.     In 
that  dedication,  and  their  preface,  they  give  us 
fine    writing,    striving    for    effect,    ornamental 
phrases  characteristic  of  the  time.     Men  were 
feeling  that  this  English  language  was  rough  and 
barbarous,  insufficient,  needing  enlargement  by 
the  addition  of  other  words  constructed  in  a 
foreign  form.     The   essays  of   Lord  Bacon   are 
virtually  contemporaneous  with  this  translation. 
Macaulay  says  a  rather  hard  word  in  calling 
his  style   "odious   and   deformed,'"  but  when 
one  turns  from  Bacon  to  the  English  Bible  there 
is  a  sharp  contrast  in  mere  style,  and  it  favors 
the  Bible.     The  contrast  is  as  great  as  that  which 
Carlyle  first  felt  between  the   ideas  of   Shake- 
speare and  those  of  the  Bible  when  he  said  that 
"this  world  is  a  catholic  kind  of  place;    the 

1  Essay  on  John  Dryden. 
99 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

Puritan  gospel  and  Shakespeare's  plays:  such 
a  pair  of  facts  I  have  rarely  seen  save  out  of  one 
chimerical  generation."^  And  that  gives  point 
to  the  word  already  quoted  from  Hallam  that 
the  English  of  the  King  James  version  is  not 
the  English  of  James  I. 

Four  things  helped  to  determine  the  sim- 
plicity and  pure  English — unornamented  Eng- 
lish— of  the  King  James  version,  made  it,  that 
is,  the  English  classic.  Two  of  these  things  have 
been  dealt  with  already  in  other  connections. 
First,  that  it  was  a  Book  for  the  people,  for  the 
people  of  the  middle  level  of  language;  a  work 
by  scholars,  but  not  chiefly  for  scholars,  intended 
rather  for  the  common  use  of  common  people. 
Secondly,  that  the  translators  were  constantly 
beholden  to  the  work  of  the  past  in  this  same 
line.  Where  Wiclif's  words  were  still  in  use 
they  used  them.  That  tended  to  fix  the  lan- 
guage by  the  use  which  had  already  become 
natural. 

The  other  two  determining  influences  must  be 
spoken  of  now.  The  third  lies  in  the  fact  that 
the  English  language  was  still  plastic.  It  had 
not  fallen  into  such  hard  forms  that  its  words 
were  narrow  or  restricted.  The  truth  is  that 
from  the  point  of  view  of  pure  literature  the 

^  Historical  Sketches,  Hampton  Court  Conference. 
100 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Bible  is  better  in  English  than  it  is  in  Greek  or 
Hebrew.  That  is,  the  English  of  the  King 
James  version  as  English  is  better  than  the  Greek 
of  the  New  Testament  as  Greek.  As  for  the 
Hebrew  there  was  little  development  for  many 
generations;  Renan  thinks  there  was  none  at  all. 
The  difference  comes  from  the  point  of  time  in 
the  growth  of  the  tongue  when  the  Book  was 
written.  The  Greek  was  written  when  the 
language  was  old,  when  it  had  differentiated  its 
terms,  when  it  had  become  corrupted  by  out- 
side influence.  The  English  version  was  written 
when  the  language  was  new  and  fresh,  when  a 
word  could  be  taken  and  set  in  its  meaning 
without  being  warped  from  some  earlier  usage. 
The  study  of  the  Greek  Testament  is  always 
being  complicated  by  the  effort  to  bring  into  its 
words  the  classical  meaning,  when  so  far  as  the 
writers  of  the  New  Testament  were  concerned 
they  had  no  interest  in  the  classical  meaning, 
but  only  in  the  current  meaning  of  those  words. 
In  the  English  language  there  was  as  yet  no 
classical  meaning;  it  was  exactly  that  meaning 
that  these  writers  were  giving  the  words  when 
they  brought  them  into  their  version.^  There  is 
large  advantage  in  the  fact  that  the  age  was  not 
a  scientific  one,  that  the  language  had  not  be- 

^  Trevelyan,  England  under  the  Stuarts,  p.  54, 
101 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

come  complicated.  So  it  becomes  interesting  to 
observe  with  Professor  March  that  ninety-three 
per  cent,  of  these  words,  counting  also  repetitions, 
are  native  English  words.  The  language  was  new, 
was  still  plastic.  It  had  not  been  stiffened  by- 
use.  It  received  its  set  more  definitely  from 
the  English  Bible  than  from  any  other  one 
work — more  than  from  Shakespeare,  whose  in- 
fluence was  second. 

The  fourth  fact  which  helped  to  determine  its 
English  style  is  the  loyalty  of  the  translators  to 
the  original,  notably  the  Hebrew.  It  is  a  com- 
mon remark  of  the  students  of  the  original 
tongues  that  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  languages 
are  peculiarly  translatable.  That  is  notable  in 
the  Hebrew.  It  is  not  a  language  of  abstract 
terms.  The  tendency  of  language  is  always  to 
become  vague,  since  we  are  lazy  in  the  use  of  it. 
We  use  one  word  in  various  ways,  and  a  pet  one 
for  many  ideas.  Language  is  always  more  con- 
crete in  its  earlier  forms.  In  this  period  of  the 
concrete  English  language,  then,  the  translation 
was  made  from  the  Hebrew,  which  was  also  a 
concrete,  figurative  language  itself.  The  struc- 
ture of  the  Hebrew  sentence  is  very  simple. 
There  are  no  extended  paragraphs  in  it.  It  is 
somewhat  different  in  the  New  Testament, 
where  these  paragraphs  are  found,  certainly  in 

102 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

the  Pauline  Greek;  but  even  there  the  extended 
sentences  are  broken  into  clauses  which  can  be 
taken  as  wholes.  The  English  version  shows 
constantly  the  marks  of  the  Hebrew  influence  in 
the  simplicity  of  its  phrasing.  Renan  says  that 
the  Hebrew  "knows  how  to  make  propositions, 
but  not  how  to  link  them  into  paragraphs."  So 
the  earlier  Bible  stories  are  like  a  child's  way  of 
talking.  They  let  one  sentence  follow  another, 
and  their  unity  is  found  in  the  overflowing  use 
of  the  word  "and" — one  fact  hung  to  another 
to  make  a  story,  but  not  to  make  an  argument. 
In  the  first  ten  chapters  of  I  Samuel,  for  example, 
there  are  two  hundred  and  thirty-eight  verses; 
one  hundred  and  sixty  of  them  begin  with  and. 
There  are  only  twenty-six  of  the  whole  which 
have  no  connective  word  that  thrusts  them  back 
upon  the  preceding  verse. 

In  the  Hebrew  language,  also,  most  of  the 
emotions  are  connected  either  in  the  word  used 
or  in  the  words  accompanying  it  with  the  physi- 
cal condition  that  expresses  it.  Over  and  over 
we  are  told  that  "he  opened  his  mouth  and 
said,"  or,  "he  was  angry  and  his  countenance 
fell."  Anger  is  expressed  in  words  which  tell 
of  hard  breathing,  of  heat,  of  boiling  tumult,  of 
trembling.  We  would  not  trouble  to  say  that. 
The  opening  of  the  mouth  to  speak  or  the  fall- 

103 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

ing  of  the  countenance  in  anger,  we  would  take 
for  granted.  The  Hebrew  does  not.  Even  in 
the  description  of  God  you  remember  the  terms 
are  those  of  common  hfe;  He  is  a  shepherd  when 
shepherds  are  writing;  He  is  a  husbandman 
threshing  out  the  nations,  treading  the  wine- 
press until  He  is  reddened  with  the  wine — and 
so  on.  That  is  the  natural  method  of  the  He- 
brew language — concrete,  vivid,  never  abstract, 
simple  in  its  phrasing.  The  King  James  trans- 
lators are  exceedingly  loyal  to  that  original. 

Professor  Cook,  of  Yale,  suggests  that  four 
traits  make  the  Bible  easy  to  translate  into  any 
language:  'universality  of  interest,  so  that  there 
are  apt  to  be  words  in  any  language  to  express 
what  it  means,  since  it  expresses  nothing  but 
what  men  all  talk  about;  ^'then,  the  concrete- 
ness  and  picturesqueness  of  its  language,  avoid- 
ing abstract  phrases  which  might  be  difficult  to 
reproduce  in  another  tongue;  then,  the  sim- 
plicity of  its  structure,  so  that  it  can  be  taken 
in  small  bits,  and  long  complicated  sentences 
are  not  needed;  ^d,  finally,  its  rhythm,  so  that 
part  easily  follows  part  and  the  words  catch  a 
kind  of  swing  which  is  not  difficult  to  imitate. 
That  is  a  very  true  analysis.  The  Bible  is  the 
most  easily  translated  book  there  is,  and  has 
become  the  classic  for  more  languages  than  any 

104 


V 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

other  one  book.  It  is  brought  about  in  part  in 
our  EngHsh  version  by  the  faithfulness  of  the 
translators  to  the  original. 

Passing  from  these  general  considerations, 
let  us  look  directly  at  the  English  Bible  itself 
and  its  literary  qualities.  The  first  thing  that 
attracts  attention  is  its  use  of  words,  and  since 
words  lie  at  the  root  of  all  literature  it  is  worth 
while  to  stop  for  them  for  a  moment.  Two 
things  are  to  be  said  about  the  words:  first, 
that  they  are  few;  and,  secondly,  that  they  are 
short.  The  vocabulary  of  the  English  Bible  is 
not  an  extensive  one.  Shakespeare  uses  from 
fifteen  to  twenty  thousand  words.  In  Milton's 
verse  he  uses  about  thirteen  thousand.  In  the 
Old  Testament,  in  the  Hebrew  and  Chaldaic 
tongue,  there  are  fifty-six  hundred  and  forty- 
two  words.  In  the  New  Testament,  in  the  Greek, 
there  are  forty-eight  hundred.  But  in  the  whole 
of  the  King  James  version  there  are  only  about 
six  thousand  different  words.  The  vocabulary 
is  plainly  a  narrow  one  for  a  book  of  its  size. 
While,  as  was  said  before,  the  translators  avoided 
using  the  same  word  always  for  translation  of 
the  same  original,  they  yet  managed  to  recur 
to  the  same  words  often  enough  so  that  this 
comparatively  small  list  of  six  thousand  words, 

105 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

about  one-third  Shakespeare's  vocabulary,  suf- 
ficed for  the  stating  of  the  truth. 

Then,  secondly,  the  words  are  short,  and  in 
general  short  words  are  the  strong  ones.  The 
average  word  in  the  whole  Bible,  including  the 
long  proper  names,  is  barely  over  four  letters, 
and  if  all  the  proper  names  are  excluded  the  aver- 
age word  is  just  a  little  under  four  letters.  Of 
course,  another  way  of  saying  that  is  that  the 
words  are  generally  Anglo-Saxon,  and,  while  in 
the  original  spelling  they  were  much  longer,  yet 
in  their  sound  they  were  as  brief  as  they  are  in 
our  present  spelling.  There  is  no  merit  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  words  except  in  the  fact  that  they  are 
concrete,  definite,  non-abstract  words.  They 
are  words  that  mean  the  same  to  everybody; 
they  are  part  of  common  experience.  We  shall 
see  the  power  of  such  words  by  comparing  a 
simple  statement  in  Saxon  words  from  the 
English  Bible  with  a  comment  of  a  learned 
theologian  of  our  own  time  on  them.  The 
phrase  is  a  simple  one  in  the  Communion  ser- 
vice: "This  is  my  body  which  is  given  for  you." 
That  is  all  Saxon.  When  our  theologian  comes 
to  comment  on  it  he  says  we  are  to  understand 
that  "the  validity  of  the  service  does  not  lie 
in  the  quality  of  external  signs  and  sacramental 
representation,  but  in  its  essential  property  and 

106 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

substantial  reality."  Now  there  are  nine  words 
abstract  in  their  meaning,  Latin  in  their  form. 
It  is  in  that  kind  of  words  that  the  Bible  could 
have  been  translated,  and  in  our  own  day  might 
even  be  translated.  Addison  speaks  of  that: 
"If  any  one  would  judge  of  the  beauties  of  poe- 
try that  are  to  be  met  with  in  the  divine  writings, 
and  examine  how  kindly  the  Hebrew  manners  of 
speech  mix  and  incorporate  with  the  English 
language,  after  having  perused  the  Book  of 
Psalms,  let  him  read  a  literal  translation  of 
Horace  or  Pindar.  He  will  find  in  these  two 
last  such  an  absurdity  and  confusion  of  style 
with  such  a  comparative  poverty  of  imagination, 
as  will  make  him  very  sensible  of  what  I  have 
been   here   advancing."  ^ 

The  fact  that  the  words  are  short  can  be 
quickly  illustrated  by  taking  some  familiar  sec- 
tions. In  the  Ten  Commandments  there  are 
three  hundred  and  nineteen  words  in  all;  two 
hundred  and  fifty-nine  of  them  are  words  of 
one  syllable,  and  only  sixty  are  of  two  syllables 
and  over.  There  are  fifty  words  of  two  syllables, 
six  of  three  syllables,  of  which  four  are  such  com- 
posite words  that  they  really  amount  to  two 
words  of  one  and  two  syllables  each,  with  four 
words   of  four   syllables,   and  none   over  that. 

1  The  Spectator,  No.  405. 
107 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Make  a  comparison  just  here.  There  is  a  para- 
graph in  Professor  March's  lectures  on  the  Enghsh 
language  where  he  is  urging  that  its  strongest 
words  are  purely  English,  not  derived  from 
Greek  or  Latin.  He  uses  the  King  James  ver- 
sion as  illustration.  If,  now,  we  take  three 
hundred  and  nineteen  words  at  the  beginning 
of  that  paragraph  to  compare  with  the  three 
hundred  and  nineteen  in  the  Ten  Command- 
ments, the  result  will  be  interesting.  Where 
the  Ten  Commandments  have  two  hundred  and 
fifty-nine  words  of  one  syllable,  Professor  March 
has  only  one  hundred  and  ninety -four;  over 
against  the  fifty  two-syllable  words  in  the  Ten 
Commandments,  Professor  March  has  sixty -five; 
over  against  their  six  words  of  three  syllables, 
he  has  thirty -five;  over  against  their  four  words 
of  four  syllables,  he  uses  eighteen;  and  while 
the  Ten  Commandments  have  no  word  longer 
than  four  syllables.  Professor  March  needs  five 
words  of  five  syllables  and  two  words  of  six 
syllables  to  express  his  ideas. ^ 

The  same  thing  appears  in  the  familiar  23d 
Psalm,  where  there  are  one  hundred  and  nineteen 

^This  table  will  show  the  comparison  at  a  glance: 


Syllables 
The  Commandments 
Professor  March 

I 
259 
194 

2 

50 
65 
108 

3 

6 
35 

4 

4 

18 

5 
0 
5 

■  6 

0     319 
2     319 

THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

words  in  all,  of  which  ninety-five  are  words  of 
one  syllable,  and  only  three  of  three  syllables, 
with  none  longer.  In  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
eighty  two  per  cent,  of  the  words  in  our  English 
version  are  words  of  one  syllable. 
^  The  only  point  urged  now  is  that  this  kind  of 
thing  makes  for  strength  in  literature.  Short 
words  are  strong  words.  They  have  a  snap  and  a 
grip  to  them  that  long  words  have  not.  Very  few 
men  would  grow  angry  over  having  a  statement 
called  a  "prevarication"  or  "a  disingenuous  en- 
tanglement of  ideas,"  but  there  is  something 
about  the  word  "lie"  that  snaps  in  a  man's 
face.  "Unjustifiable  hypothecation"  may  be 
the  same  as  stealing,  but  it  would  never  excite 
one  to  be  called  "an  unjustifiable  hypothecator " 
as  it  does  to  be  called  a  thief.  At  the  very 
foundation  of  the  strength  of  the  literature  of  the 
English  Bible  there  lies  this  tendency  to  short, 
clear-cut  words. 

Rising  now  from  this  basal  element  in  the 
literature  of  the  version,  we  come  to  the  place 
where  its  style  and  its  ideas  blend  in  what  we 
may  call  its  earnestness.  That  is  itself  a  lite- 
rary characteristic.  There  is  not  a  line  of  tri- 
fling in  the  book.  No  man  would  ever  learn 
trifling  from  it.  It  takes  itself  with  tremendous 
seriousness.     Here   are   earnest   men    at    work; 

109 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

to  them  life  is  joyous,  but  it  is  no  joke.  That  Is 
why  the  element  of  humor  in  it  is  such  a  small 
one.  It  is  there,  to  be  sure.  Many  of  its 
similes  are  intended  to  be  humorous.  A  few  of 
its  incidents  are  humorous;  but  it  has  little 
of  that  element  in  it,  as  indeed  little  of  our  litera- 
ture has  that  element  markedly  in  it.  We  have 
a  few  exceptions.  But  what  George  Eliot  says 
in  Adam  Bede  is  true,  that  wit  is  of  a  temporary 
nature,  and  does  not  deal  with  the  deep  and 
more  lasting  elements  in  life.  The  Bible  is  not 
a  sad  book.  There  are  children  at  play  in  it; 
there  are  feasts  and  buoyant  gatherings  fully 
recounted.     But  it  never  trifles  nor  jests. 

So  it  has  given  us  a  language  of  great  dignity. 
Let  Addison  speak  again:  "How  cold  and  dead 
does  a  prayer  appear  that  is  composed  in  the 
most  elegant  and  polite  forms  of  speech,  which 
are  natural  to  our  tongue,  when  it  is  not  height- 
ened by  that  solemnity  of  phrase  which  may  be 
drawn  from  the  sacred  writings.  It  has  been 
said  by  some  of  the  ancients  that  if  the  gods 
were  to  talk  with  men,  they  would  certainly 
speak  in  Plato's  style;  but  I  think  we  may  say, 
with  justice,  that  when  mortals  converse  with 
their  Creator  they  cannot  do  it  in  so  proper  a 
style  as  in  that  of  the  Holy  Scriptures." 

As  that  earnestness  of  the  literature  of  the 

110 


V 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

original  precluded  any  great  amount  of  humor 
in  the  wide  range  of  its  literary  forms,  so  in  the 
King  James  version  it  precluded  any  trifling  ex- 
pressions, any  plays  on  words,  even  the  duplica- 
tion of  such  plays  as  can  be  found  in  the  Hebrew 
or  the  Greek.  You  seldom  find  any  turn  of  a 
word  in  the  King  James  version,  though  you  do 
occasionally  find  it  in  the  Hebrew.  One  such 
punning  expression  occurs  in  the  story  of  Sam- 
son (Judges  xv:16),  where  our  version  reads: 
**With  the  jawbone  of  an  ass,  heaps  upon  heaps, 
with  the  jawbone  of  an  ass  have  I  slain  a  thou- 
sand men."  In  the  Hebrew  the  words  trans- 
lated "ass"  and  "heaps"  are  variants  of  the 
same  word.  It  comes  near  the  Hebrew  to  say: 
"With  the  jawbone  of  an  ass,  masses  upon 
masses,"  and  so  on.  These  translators  would 
not  risk  reproducing  such  puns  for  fear  of  lower- 
ing the  dignity  of  their  results.  There  is  a 
deadly  seriousness  about  their  work  and  so 
they  never  lose  strength  as  they  go  on. 

That  earnestness  grows  out  of  a  second  fact 
which  may  be  emphasized — namely,  the  great- 
ness of  the  themes  of  Bible  literature.  Here  is 
history,  but  it  is  not  cast  into  fiction  form. 
History  always  becomes  more  interesting  for  a  first 
reading  when  it  is  in  the  form  of  fiction;  but  it 
always  loses  greatness  in  that  form.     Test  it  by 

111 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

turning  from  a  history  of  the  American  revolu- 
tionary or  civil  war  to  an  historical  novel  that 
deals  with  the  same  period;  or  from  a  history 
of  Scotland  to  the  Waverly  novels.  In  some 
degree  the  earnestness  of  the  time  is  lost;  the 
same  facts  are  there;  but  they  do  not  loom  so 
large,  nor  do  they  seem  so  great.  So  there  is 
power  in  the  fact  that  the  historical  elements 
of  the  version  are  in  stately  form  and  are  never 
sacrificed  to  the  fictional  form. 

These  great  themes  save  the  work  from  being 
local.  It  issues  from  life,  but  from  life  con- 
sidered in  the  large.  The  themes  of  great 
literature  are  great  enough  to  make  their  im- 
mediate surroundings  forgotten.  The  English 
Bible  deals  with  the  great  facts  and  the  great 
problems.  It  is  from  the  point  of  view  of  those 
great  facts  that  it  handles  even  commonplace 
things,  and  you  forget  the  commonplaceness  of 
the  things  in  the  greatness  of  the  dealing.  Take 
its  attitude  toward  God.  One  needs  the  sense  of 
that  great  theme  to  read  it  fairly.  It  quietly 
overlooks  secondary  causes,  goes  back  of  them 
to  God.  Partly  that  was  because  the  original 
writers  were  ignorant  of  some  of  those  secondary 
causes;  partly  that  they  knew  them,  but  wanted 
to  go  farther  back.  Take  the  most  outstanding 
instance,  that  of  the  Book  of  Jonah.     All  its 

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THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

facts,  without  exception,  can  be  told  without 
mention  of  God,  if  one  cared  to  do  it.  But 
there  could  not  be  anything  like  so  great  a  story 
if  it  is  told  that  way.  One  of  his  biographers 
says  of  Lincoln  that  there  is  nothing  in  his  whole 
career  which  calls  for  explanation  in  other  than 
a  purely  natural  and  human  way.  That  is  true, 
if  one  does  not  care  to  go  any  farther  back  than 
that.  But  the  greatest  story  cannot  be  made 
out  of  Lincoln's  life  on  those  terms.  There  is 
not  material  enough;  the  life  must  be  delocalized. 
It  can  be  told  without  that  larger  view,  so  that 
it  will  be  of  interest  to  America  and  American 
children,  but  not  so  that  it  will  be  of  value  to 
generations  of  men  in  all  countries  and  under  all 
circumstances  if  it  is  told  on  those  terms.  Part 
of  the  greatness  of  Scripture,  from  a  literary 
point  of  view,  is  that  it  has  such  a  tremendous 
range  of  theme,  and  is  saved  from  a  mere  narra- 
tion of  local  events  by  seeing  those  events  in  the 
light  of  larger  considerations. 

Let  that  stand  for  one  of  the  great  facts. 
Now  take  one  of  the  great  problems.  The  thing 
that  makes  Job  so  great  a  classic  is  the  fact  that, 
while  it  is  dealing  with  a  character,  he  is  stand- 
ing for  the  problem  of  undeserved  suffering.  A 
man  who  has  that  before  him,  if  he  has  at  all 
the  gift  of  imagination,  is  sure  to  write  in  a  far 

8    '  113 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

larger  way  than  when  he  is  dealing  with  a  man 
with  boils  as  though  he  were  finally  important. 
One  could  deal  with  Job  as  a  character,  and  do 
a  small  piece  of  work.  But  when  you  deal 
with  Job  as  a  type,  a  much  larger  opportunity 
offers. 

It  is  these  great  ideas,  as  to  either  facts  or 
problems,  that  give  the  seriousness,  the  ear- 
nestness to  the  literature  of  the  Bible.  Men 
who  express  great  ideas  in  literary  form  are  not 
dilettante  about  them.  One  of  the  English 
writers  just  now  prominent  as  an  essayist  is 
often  counted  whimsical,  trifling.  One  of  his 
near  friends  keenly  resents  that  opinion,  insists 
instead  that  he  is  dead  in  earnest,  serious  to  the 
last  degree,  purposeful  in  all  his  work.  What 
makes  that  so  difficult  to  believe  is  that  there  is 
always  a  tone  of  chaffing  in  his  essays.  He 
seems  always  to  be  making  fun  of  himself  or  of 
other  people;  and  if  he  is  dead  in  earnest  he  has 
the  wrong  style  to  make  great  literature  or 
literature  that  will  live  long. 

It  is  that  earnestness  and  greatness  of  theme 
which  puts  the  tang  into  the  English  of  the 
Bible.  Coleridge  says  that  "  after  reading  Isaiah 
or  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  Homer  and  Virgil 
are  disgustingly  tame,  Milton  himself  barely 
tolerable."     It  need  not  be  put  quite  so  strongly 

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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

as  that;    but  there  is  large  warrant  of  fact  in 
that  expression. 

Go  a  little  farther  in  thought  of  the  literary 
characteristics  of  the  Bible.  Notice  the  variety 
of  the  forms  involved.  Recall  Professor  Moul- 
ton's  four  cardinal  points  in  literature,  all  of  it 
taking  one  of  these  forms:  either  description, 
when  a  scene  is  given  in  the  words  of  the  author, 
as  when  Milton  and  Homer  describe  scenes 
without  pretending  to  give  the  words  of  the 
actors  throughout;  or,  secondly,  presentation, 
when  a  scene  is  given  in  the  words  of  those  who 
took  part  in  it,  and  the  author  does  not  appear, 
as,  of  course,  in  the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  when 
he  never  appears,  but  where  all  his  sentiments 
are  put  in  the  words  of  others.  As  between 
those  two,  the  Bible  is  predominantly  a  book 
of  description,  the  authors  for  the  most  part 
doing  the  speaking,  though  there  is,  of  course, 
an  element  of  presentation.  Professor  Moulton 
goes  on  with  the  two  other  phases  of  literary 
form:  prose,  moving  in  the  region  limited  by 
facts,  as  history  and  philosophy  deal  only  with 
what  actually  has  existence;  and  poetry,  which 
by  its  Greek  origin  means  creative  literature. 
He  reminds  us  that,  however  literature  starts, 
these  are  the  points  toward  which  it  moves,  the 
paths  it  takes.     All  four  of  them  appear  in  the 

115 


/ 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

literature  of  the  English  Bible.     You  have  more 
of  prose  and  less  of  poetry;    but  the  poetry  is 
there,  not  in  the  sense  of  rhyme,  but  in  the  sense 
of  real  creative  literature. 
.  A  more  natural  way  of  considering  the  litera- 

ture has  been  followed  by  Professor  Gardiner. 
He  finds  four  elements  in  the  literature  of  the 
Bible:  its  narrative,  its  poetry,  its  philoso- 
phizing, and  its  prophecy.  It  is  not  necessary 
for  our  purpose  to  go  into  details  about  that. 
We  shall  have  all  we  need  when  we  realize  that, 
small  as  the  volume  of  the  book  is,  it  yet  does 
cover  all  these  types  of  literature.  Its  difference 
from  other  books  is  that  it  deals  with  all  of  its 
subjects  so  compactly. 

It  will  accent  this  fact  of  its  variety  if  we  note 
the  musical  element  in  the  literature  of  the  Bible. 
It  comes  in  part  from  the  form  which  marks 
the  original  Hebrew  poetry.  It  has  become  fa- 
miliar to  say  that  it  is  not  of  the  rhyming  kind. 
Rather  it  is  marked  by  the  balancing  of  phrases 
or  of  ideas,  so  that  it  runs  in  couplets  or  in 
triplets  throughout.  In  the  Psalms  there  is 
always  a  balance  of  clauses.  They  are  some- 
times adversative;  sometimes  they  are  simply 
cumulative.  Take  several  instances  from  the 
119th  Psalm,  each  a  complete  stanza  of  Hebrew 
poetry;  (verse  15)  "I  will  meditate  in  thy  pre- 

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THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

cepts,  and  have  respect  unto  thy  ways";  or  this 
(verse  23),  "Princes  also  did  sit  and  speak 
against  me:  but  thy  servant  did  meditate  in 
thy  statutes";  or  this  (verse  45),  "And  I  will 
walk  at  liberty:  for  I  seek  thy  precepts"; 
(verse  51,)  "The  proud  have  had  me  greatly  in 
derision:  yet  have  I  not  inclined  from  thy  law." 
Each  presents  a  parallel  or  a  contrast  of  ideas. 
That  is  the  characteristic  mark  of  Hebrew  po- 
etry. It  results  in  a  kind  of  rhythm  of  the  Eng- 
lish which  makes  it  very  easy  to  set  to  music. 
Some  of  it  can  be  sung,  though  for  some  of  it 
only  the  thunder  is  the  right  accompaniment. 
But  it  is  not  simply  in  the  balance  of  phrases 
that  the  musical  element  appears.  Sometimes 
it  is  in  a  natural  but  rhythmic  consecution  of 
ideas.  The  35th  chapter  of  Isaiah,  for  example, 
is  not  poetic  in  the  Hebrew,  yet  it  is  remarkably 
musical  in  the  English.  Read  it  aloud  from 
our  familiar  version: 

"The  wilderness  and  the  solitary  place  shall  be 
glad  for  them;  and  the  desert  shall  rejoice,  and 
blossom  as  the  rose.  It  shall  blossom  abundantly, 
and  rejoice  even  with  joy  and  singing;  the  glory  of 
Lebanon  shall  be  given  unto  it,  the  excellency  of 
Carmel  and  Sharon;  they  shall  see  the  glory  of  the 
Lord,  and  the  excellency  of  our  God.  Strengthen  ye 
the  weak  hands,  and  confirm  the  feeble  knees.  Say 
to  them  that  are  of  a  fearful  heart.  Be  strong,  fear 

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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

not:  behold,  your  God  will  come  with  vengeance, 
even  God  with  a  recompense;  He  will  come  and  save 
you.  Then  the  eyes  of  the  blind  shall  be  opened,  and 
the  ears  of  the  deaf  shall  be  unstopped.  Then  shall 
the  lame  man  leap  as  a  hart,  and  the  tongue  of  the 
dumb  sing:  for  in  the  wilderness  shall  waters  break 
out,  and  streams  in  the  desert.  And  the  parched 
ground  shall  become  a  pool,  and  the  thirsty  land 
springs  of  water:  in  the  habitation  of  dragons,  where 
each  lay,  shall  be  grass  with  reeds  and  rushes.  And 
a  highway  shall  be  there,  and  a  way,  and  it  shall  be 
called  The  way  of  holiness;  the  unclean  shall  not 
pass  over  it;  but  it  shall  be  for  those:  the  way- 
faring men,  though  fools,  shall  not  err  therein.  No 
lion  shall  be  there,  nor  any  ravenous  beast  shall  go 
up  thereon,  it  shall  not  be  found  there;  but  the 
redeemed  shall  walk  there:  and  the  ransomed  of  the 
Lord  shall  return,  and  come  to  Zion  with  songs  and 
everlasting  joy  upon  their  heads;  they  shall  obtain 
joy  and  gladness,  and  sorrow  and  sighing  shall  flee 
away." 

That  can  be  set  to  music  as  it  stands.  You 
catch  the  same  form  in  the  familiar  13th  chap- 
ter of  I  Corinthians,  the  chapter  on  Charity. 
It  could  be  almost  sung  throughout.  This 
musical  element  is  in  sharp  contrast  with  much 
else  in  the  Scripture,  where  necessity  does  not 
permit  that  literary  form.  For  example,  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  which  is  argumentative 
throughout,  there  is  no  part  except  its  quotations 

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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

which  has  ever  been  set  to  music  for  uses  in 
Christian  worship.  It  is  rugged  and  protracted 
in  its  form,  and  has  no  musical  element  about 
it.  The  contrast  within  the  Scripture  of  the 
musical  and  the  unmusical  is  a  very  marked 
one. 

Add  to  the  thought  of  the  earnestness  and 
variety  of  the  Scripture  a  word  about  the  sim- 
plicity of  its  literary  expression.  There  is  noth- 
ing meretricious  in  its  style.  There  is  no  effort 
to  say  a  thing  finely.  The  translators  have 
avoided  all  temptation  to  grow  dramatic  in 
reproducing  the  original.  Contrast  the  actual 
English  Bible  with  the  narratives  or  other  lite- 
rary works  that  have  been  built  up  out  of  it. 
Read  all  that  the  Bible  tells  about  the  loss 
of  Paradise,  and  then  read  Milton's  "Paradise 
Lost."  Nearly  all  of  the  conceptions  of  Mil- 
ton's greatest  poem  are  built  up  from  brief 
Scripture  references.  But  Milton  becomes  sub- 
tle in  his  analysis  of  motives;  he  enlarges  greatly 
on  events.  Scripture  never  does  that.  It  gives 
us  very  few  analyses  of  motive  from  first  to  last. 
That  is  not  the  method  nor  the  purpose  of 
Scripture.  It  tells  the  story  in  terms  that  move 
on  the  middle  level  of  speech  and  the  middle 
level  of  understanding,  while  Milton  labors  with 
it,  complicates  it,  entangling  it  with  countless 

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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

details  which  are  to  the  Scripture  unimportant. 
It  goes  straight  to  the  simple  and  fundamental 
elements  in  the  account.  Take  a  more  modern 
illustration.  Probably  the  finest  poem  of  its 
length  in  the  English  language  is  Browning's 
"Saul."  It  is  built  out  of  one  incident  and  a 
single  expression  in  the  Bible  story  of  Saul  and 
David.  The  incident  is  David's  being  called 
from  his  sheep  to  play  his  harp  and  to  sing 
before  Saul  in  the  fits  of  gloom  which  overcome 
him;  the  expression  is  the  single  saying  that 
David  loved  Saul.  Taking  that  incident  and 
that  expression.  Browning  writes  a  beautiful 
poem  with  many  decorative  details,  with  keen 
analysis  of  motive,  with  long  accounts  of  the 
way  David  felt  when  he  rendered  his  service, 
and  how  his  heart  leaped  or  sang.  Imagine 
finding  Browning's  familiar  phrases  in  Scripture: 
"The  lilies  we  twine  round  the  harp -chords, 
lest  they  snap  neath  the  stress  of  the  noontide — 
those  sunbeams  like  swords";  "Oh,  the  wild  joy 
of  living!"  "Spring's  arrowy  summons,"  going 
"straight  to  the  aim."  That  is  very  well  for 
Browning,  but  it  is  not  the  Scripture  way;  it 
is  too  complicated.  All  that  the  Bible  says  can 
be  said  anywhere;  Browning's  "Saul"  could  not 
possibly  be  reproduced  in  other  languages.  It 
would  need  a  glossary  or  a  commentary  to  make 

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THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

it  intelligible.  It  is  beautiful  English,  and  great 
because  it  has  taken  a  great  idea  and  clothed 
it  in  worthy  expression.  But  the  simplicity  of 
the  Bible  narrative  appears  in  sharp  contrast 
with  it.  In  my  childhood  my  father  used  to 
tell  of  a  man  who  preached  on  the  creation, 
and  with  great  detail  and  much  elaboration  and 
decoration  told  the  story  of  creation  as  it  is  sug- 
gested in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis.  When  it 
was  over  he  asked  an  old  listener  what  he  thought 
of  his  effort,  and  the  only  comment  was,  "You 
can't  beat  Moses!"  Well,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  surpass  these  Bible  writers  in  simplicity,  in 
going  straight  to  the  point,  and  making  that 
plain  and  leaving  it.  Where  the  Bible  takes  a 
hundred  words  to  tell  the  whole  story  Browning 
takes  several  hundred  lines  to  tell  it. 

The  simplicity  of  the  Bible  is  largely  because 
there  is  so  little  abstract  reasoning  in  it.  Having 
few  or  no  abstract  ideas,  it  does  not  need  abstract 
words.  Rather,  it  groups  its  whole  movement 
around  characters.  Three  eminent  literary  men 
were  once  asked  to  select  the  best  reviews  of  a 
novel  which  had  just  appeared.  One  of  the 
three  statements  which  they  rated  highest  said 
of  the  book  that  it  "achieves  the  true  purpose 
of  a  novel,  which  is  to  make  comprehensible  the 
philosophy  of  life  of  a  whole  community  or  race 

121 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

of  men  by  showing  us  how  that  philosophy  ac- 
cords with  the  impulses  and  yearnings  of  typical 
individuals."  Few  phrases  could  be  more  for- 
eign to  Bible  phrases  than  those.  But  there  is 
valuable  suggestion  in  it  for  more  than  the  lit- 
erature of  the  novel.  That  is  exactly  what  the 
Scripture  does.  Its  reasoning  is  kept  concrete 
by  the  fact  that  it  is  dealing  with  characters 
more  than  movements,  and  so  it  can  speak  in 
concrete  words.  That  always  makes  for  sim- 
plicity. 

There  are  two  elements  common  to  the  his- 
tory of  literature  about  which  a  special  word 
is  deserved.  I  mean  the  dramatic  and  the  ora- 
torical elements.  The  difference  between  the 
dramatic  and  the  oratorical  is  chiefly  that  in 
dramatic  writing  there  is  a  scen^  in  which  many 
take  part,  and  in  the  oratorical  writing  one  man 
presents  the  whole  scene,  however  dramatic  the 
surroundings.  There  is  not  a  great  deal  of  either 
in  the  Scripture.  There  is  no  formal  drama, 
nothing  that  could  be  acted  as  it  stands.  It  is 
true,  to  be  sure,  that  Job  can  be  cast  into  dra- 
matic form  by  a  sufficient  manipulation,  but  it 
is  quite  unlikely,  in  spite  of  some  scholars,  that 
it  was  ever  meant  to  be  a  formal  drama  for 
action.  It  does  move  in  cycles  in  the  appear- 
ance of  its  characters,  and  it  does  close  in  a  way 

122 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

to  take  one  back  to  the  beginning.  It  has  many 
marks  of  the  drama,  and  yet  it  seems  very  un- 
likely that  it  was  ever  prepared  with  that  defi- 
nitely in  mind.  On  the  other  hand,  a  most 
likely  explanation  of  the  Song  of  Solomon  is 
that  it  is  a  short  drama  which  appears  in  our 
Bible  without  any  character  names,  as  though 
you  should  take  "Hamlet"  and  print  it  con- 
tinuously, indicating  in  no  way  the  change  of 
speakers  nor  any  movement.  The  effort  has 
been  measurably  successful  to  discover  and  in- 
sert the  names  of  the  probable  speakers.  That 
seems  to  be  the  one  exception  to  the  general 
statement  that  there  is  no  formal  drama  in  the 
Scripture.  But  there  are  some  very  striking 
dramatic  episodes,  and  they  are  made  dramatic 
for  us  very  largely  by  the  way  they  are  told. 
One  of  the  earlier  is  in  I  Kings  xviii:  21-39.  It 
is  almost  impossible  to  read  it  aloud  without 
dramatic  expression: 

"And  Elijah  came  unto  all  the  people,  and  said, 
How  long  halt  ye  between  two  opinions?  if  the  Lord 
be  God,  follow  him:  but  if  Baal,  then  follow  him. 
And  the  people  answered  him  not  a  word.  Then 
said  Elijah  unto  the  people,  I,  even  I  only,  remain 
a  prophet  of  the  Lord;  but  Baal's  prophets  are  four 
hundred  and  fifty  men.  Let  them  therefore  give  us 
two  bullocks;  and  let  them  choose  one  bullock  for 
themselves,  and  cut  it  in  pieces,  and  lay  it  on  wood, 

123 


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and  put  no  fire  under;  and  I  will  dress  the  other 
bullock,  and  lay  it  on  wood,  and  put  no  fire  under: 
and  call  ye  on  the  name  of  your  gods,  and  I  will  call 
on  the  name  of  the  Lord:  and  the  God  that  an- 
swereth  by  fire,  let  him  be  God.  And  all  the  people 
answered  and  said.  It  is  well  spoken.  And  Elijah 
said  unto  the  prophets  of  Baal,  Choose  you  one  bul- 
lock for  yourselves,  and  dress  it  first;  for  ye  are 
many;  and  call  on  the  name  of  your  gods,  but  put 
no  fire  under.  And  they  took  the  bullock  which 
was  given  them,  and  they  dressed  it,  and  called  on 
the  name  of  Baal  from  morning  until  noon,  saying, 
O  Baal,  hear  us.  But  there  was  no  voice,  nor  any  that 
answered.  And  they  leaped  upon  the  altar  which 
was  made.  And  it  came  to  pass  at  noon,  that  Elijah 
mocked  them,  and  said.  Cry  aloud;  for  he  is  a  god; 
either  he  is  talking,  or  he  is  pursuing,  or  he  is  in  a 
journey,  or  peradventure  he  sleepeth,  and  must  be 
awakened.  And  they  cried  aloud,  and  cut  them- 
selves after  their  manner  with  knives  and  lancets, 
till  the  blood  gushed  out  upon  them.  And  it  came 
to  pass,  when  midday  was  past,  and  they  prophesied 
until  the  time  of  the  offering  of  the  evening  sacrifice, 
that  there  was  neither  voice,  nor  any  to  answer,  nor 
any  that  regarded.  And  Elijah  said  unto  all  the  peo- 
ple. Come  near  unto  me.  And  all  the  people  came 
near  unto  him.  And  he  repaired  the  altar  of  the 
Lord  that  was  broken  down.  And  Elijah  took 
twelve  stones,  according  to  the  number  of  the  tribes 
of  the  sons  of  Jacob,  unto  whom  the  word  of  the 
Lord  came,  saying,  Israel  shall  be  thy  name.  And 
with  the  stones  he  built  an  altar  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord;  and  he  made  a  trench  about  the  altar,  as  great 

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THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

as  would  contain  two  measures  of  seed.  And  he  put 
the  wood  in  order,  and  cut  the  bullock  in  pieces,  and 
laid  him  on  the  wood,  and  said.  Fill  four  barrels  with 
water,  and  pour  it  on  the  burnt  sacrifice,  and  on  the 
wood.  And  he  said,  Do  it  the  second  time.  And 
they  did  it  the  second  time.  And  he  said.  Do  it 
the  third  time.  And  they  did  it  the  third  time. 
And  the  water  ran  round  about  the  altar;  and  he 
filled  the  trench  also  with  water.  And  it  came  to 
pass  at  the  time  of  the  offering  of  the  evening  sacri- 
fice, that  Elijah  the  prophet  came  near,  and  said. 
Lord  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  of  Israel,  let  it  be 
known  this  day  that  thou  art  God  in  Israel,  and  that 
I  am  thy  servant,  and  that  I  have  done  all  these 
things  at  thy  word.  Hear  me,  O  Lord,  hear  me,  that 
this  people  may  know  that  thou  art  the  Lord  God, 
and  that  thou  hast  turned  their  heart  back  again. 
Then  the  fire  of  the  Lord  fell,  and  consumed  the 
burnt  sacrifice,  and  the  wood,  and  the  stones,  and 
the  dust,  and  licked  up  the  water  that  was  in  the 
trench.  And  when  all  the  people  saw  it,  they  fell 
on  their  faces:  and  they  said.  The  Lord,  he  is  the 
God;   the  Lord,  he  is  the  God." 

That  is  not  simply  a  dramatic  event;  that  is 
a  striking  telling  of  it.  It  is  more  than  a  narra- 
tive. In  narrative  literature  the  scene  is  ac- 
cepted as  already  constructed.  In  dramatic 
literature  such  appeal  is  made  to  the  imagination 
that  the  reader  reconstructs  the  scene  for  him- 
self. We  are  not  told  in  this  how  Elijah  felt, 
or  how  he  acted,  nor  how  the  people  as  a  whole 

125 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

looked,  nor  the  setting  of  the  scene;  but  if  one 
reads  it  with  care  it  makes  its  own  setting.  The 
scene  constructs  itself. 

The  dramatic  style  does  not  prevail  at  most 
important  points  of  the  Scripture,  because  it  is 
a  fictitious  style  for  the  presenting  of  truth.  It 
inevitably  suggests  superficiality.  Things  actu- 
ally do  not  happen  in  life  as  they  do  in  drama. 

One  of  our  latest  biographers  says  that  a 
scientific  historian  is  always  suspicious  of  dra- 
matic events.^  They  may  be  true,  but  they 
are  more  liable  to  be  afterthoughts,  like  the 
bright  answers  we  could  have  made  to  our  op- 
ponents if  we  had  only  thought  of  them  at  the 
time.  You  never  lose  the  sense  of  unreality  in 
the  very  construction  of  a  drama.  Life  cannot 
be  crowded  into  two  or  three  hours,  and  justice 
does  not  come  out  as  the  drama  makes  it  do. 
So  that  at  most  important  points  of  the  Scrip- 
ture dramatic  writing  does  not  appear.  The 
account  of  the  carrying  away  into  captivity  of 
the  children  of  Israel  is  at  no  point  dramatic, 
though  you  can  see  instantly  what  a  great  op- 
portunity there  was  for  it.  It  is  simply  narra- 
tive. It  is  noticeable  that  none  of  the  accounts 
of  the  crucifixion  is  at  all  dramatic.  They  are 
all  simply  narrative.     The  imagination  does  not 

^  McGiffert,  Life  of  Martin  Luther. 
126 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

immediately  conjure  up  the  scene.  There  may 
be  two  reasons  for  that.  One  is  that  there  are 
involved  several  hours  in  which  there  is  no 
action  recorded.  The  other  is  that  by  the  time 
the  accounts  were  written  the  actual  events 
were  submerged  in  importance  by  their  un worded 
meaning.  The  account  of  the  conversion  of 
Paul,  on  the  other  hand,  brief  as  it  is,  has  at 
least  minor  dramatic  elements  in  it.  On  the 
whole,  the  Old  Testament  is  far  more  dramatic 
than  the  New. 

There  is  even  less  of  the  oratorical  element  in 
the  Scripture.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  consider- 
able amount  of  quotation,  and  men  do  speak  at 
some  length,  but  seldom  oratorically.  The 
prophetical  writings  are  generally  too  fragmen- 
tary to  suggest  oratory,  and  the  quotations  in  the 
New  Testament,  especially  from  the  preaching 
of  our  Lord,  are  evidently  for  the  most  part 
excerpts  from  longer  addresses  than  are  given. 
There  are  few  of  the  statements  of  Paul,  as  in 
the  26th  chapter  of  Acts,  which  could  be  de- 
livered oratorically;  but  here  again  the  Old 
Testament  is  more  marked  than  the  New.  The 
earliest  specimen  of  oratory  is  also  one  of  the 
finest  specimens.  It  is  in  the  44th  chapter  of 
Genesis,  and  is  the  account  of  Judah's  reply  to 
his  unrecognized  brother  Joseph: 

127 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

"Then  Judah  came  near  unto  him,  and  said,  O  my 
lord,  let  thy  servant,  I  pray  thee,  speak  a  word  in 
my  lord's  ears,  and  let  not  thine  anger  burn  against 
thy  servant:  for  thou  art  even  as  Pharoah.  My  lord 
asked  his  servants,  saying,  Have  ye  a  father,  or  a 
brother?  And  we  said  unto  my  lord.  We  have  a 
father,  an  old  man,  and  a  child  of  his  old  age,  a 
little  one;  and  his  brother  is  dead,  and  he  alone  is 
left  of  his  mother,  and  his  father  loveth  him.  And 
thou  saidst  unto  thy  servants.  Bring  him  down  unto 
me,  that  I  may  set  mine  eyes  upon  him.  And  we 
said  unto  my  lord,  The  lad  cannot  leave  his  father: 
for  if  he  should  leave  his  father,  his  father  would  die. 
And  thou  saidst  unto  thy  servant.  Except  your 
youngest  brother  come  down  with  you,  ye  shall  see 
my  face  no  more.  And  it  came  to  pass  when  we 
came  up  unto  thy  servant  my  father,  we  told  him  the 
words  of  my  lord.  And  our  father  said,  Go  again 
and  buy  us  a  little  food.  And  we  said.  We  cannot 
go  down;  if  our  youngest  brother  be  with  us,  then  we 
will  go  down:  for  we  may  not  see  the  man's  face, 
except  our  youngest  brother  be  with  us.  And  thy 
servant  my  father  said  unto  us.  Ye  know  that  my 
wife  bare  me  two  sons:  and  the  one  went  out  from 
me,  and  I  said.  Surely  he  is  torn  in  pieces;  and  I 
saw  him  not  since :  and  if  ye  take  this  also  from  me, 
and  mischief  befall  him,  ye  shall  bring  down  my  gray 
hairs  with  sorrow  to  the  grave.  Now  therefore  when 
I  come  to  thy  servant  my  father,  and  the  lad  be  not 
with  us;  seeing  that  his  life  is  bound  up  in  the  lad's 
life;  it  shall  come  to  pass,  when  he  seeth  that  the 
lad  is  not  with  us,  that  he  will  die:  and  thy  servants 
shall  bring  down  the  gray  hairs  of  thy  servant  our 

128 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

father  with  sorrow  to  the  grave.  For  thy  servant 
became  surety  for  the  lad  unto  my  father,  saying, 
If  I  bring  him  not  unto  thee,  then  I  shall  bear  the 
blame  to  my  father  for  ever.  Now  therefore,  I  pray 
thee,  let  thy  servant  abide  instead  of  the  lad  a  bond- 
man to  my  lord;  and  let  the  lad  go  up  with  his  brethren. 
For  how  shall  I  go  up  to  my  father,  and  the  lad  be 
not  with  me?  lest  peradventure  I  see  the  evil  that 
shall  come  on  my  father." 

That  is  pure  oratory,  and  it  is  greatly  helped 
by  the  English  expression  of  it.  Here  our  King 
James  version  is  finer  than  either  of  the  other 
later  versions,  as  indeed  it  is  in  almost  all  these 
sections  where  the  phraseology  is  important  for 
the  ear. 

We  need  not  go  farther.  Part  of  these  out- 
standing characteristics  come  to  our  version 
from  the  original,  and  might  appear  in  any  ver- 
sion of  the  Bible.  Yet  nowhere  do  even  these 
original  characteristics  come  to  such  prominence 
as  in  the  King  James  translation;  and  it  adds 
to  them  those  that  are  peculiar  to  itself. 

9 


LECTURE  IV 

THE    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    KING    JAMES    VERSION 
ON   ENGLISH    LITERATURE 

f  I^HE  Bible  is  a  book -making  book.  It  is 
-■"  literature  which  provokes  literature. 
It  would  be  a  pleasure  to  survey  the  whole 
field  of  literature  in  the  broadest  sense  and  to 
note  the  creative  power  of  the  King  James  ver- 
sion; but  that  is  manifestly  impossible  here. 
Certain  limitations  must  be  frankly  made. 
Leave  on  one  side,  therefore,  the  immense  body 
of  purely  religious  literature,  sermons,  exposi- 
tions, commentaries,  which,  of  course,  are  the 
direct  product  of  the  Bible.  No  book  ever 
caused  so  much  discussion  about  itself  and  its 
teaching.  That  is  because  it  deals  with  the 
fundamental  human  interest,  religion.  It  still 
remains  true  that  the  largest  single  department 
of  substantial  books  from  our  English  presses  is 
in  the  realm  of  religion,  and  after  the  purely 
recreative  literature  they  are  probably  most 
widely  read.     Yet,  they  are  not  what  we  mean 

130 


V 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

at  this  time  by  the  literary  result  of  the  English 
Bible. 
L^  /  Leave  on  one  side  also  the  very  large  body 
of  political  and  historical  writing.  Much  of  it 
shows  Bible  influence.  In  the  nature  of  the 
case,  any  historian  of  the  past  three  hundred 
years  must  often  refer  to  and  quote  from  the 
English  Bible,  and  must  note  its  influence.  An 
entire  study  could  be  devoted  to  the  influence 
of  the  English  Bible  on  Green  or  Bancroft  or 
Freeman  or  Prescott — its  influence  on  their 
matter  and  their  manner.  Another  could  be 
given  to  its  influence  on  political  writing  and 
speaking.  No  great  orator  of  the  day  would  fail 
us  of  material,  and  the  great  political  papers 
and  orations  of  the  past  would  only  widen  the 
field.  Yet  while  some  of  this  political  and  his- 
torical writing  is  recognized  as  literature,  most 
of  it  can  be  left  out  of  our  thought  just 
now. 

It  may  aid  in  the  limiting  of  the  field  to 
accept  what  Dean  Stanley  said  in  another  con- 
nection: "By  literature,  I  mean  those  great 
works  that  rise  above  professional  or  common- 
place uses  and  take  possession  of  the  mind  of 
a  whole  nation  or  a  whole  age."  ^  This  is  one 
of  the  matters  which  we  all  understand  until 

*  Thoughts  that  Breathe, 
131 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

we  begin  to  define  it;  we  know  what  we  mean 
until  some  one  asks  us. 
/  The  literature  of  which  we  are  thinking  in  this 
narrower  sense  is  in  the  sphere  of  art  rather  than 
in  the  sphere  of  distinct  achievement.  De 
Quincey's  division  is  familiar:  the  literature  of 
knowledge,  and  the  literature  of  power.  The 
function  of  the  first  is  to  teach;  the  function  of 
the  second  is  to  move.  Professor  Dowden 
points  out  that  between  the  two  lies  a  third 
field,  the  literature  of  criticism.  It  seeks  both 
to  teach  and  to  move.  Our  concern  is  chiefly 
with  De  Quincey's  second  field — the  literature 
of  power.  In  the  first  field,  the  literature  of 
knowledge,  must  lie  all  history,  with  Hume  and 
Gibbon;  all  science,  with  Darwin  and  Fiske; 
all  philosophy,  with  Spencer  and  William  James; 
all  political  writing,  with  Voltaire  and  Webster. 
Near  that  same  field  must  lie  many  of  those 
essays  in  criticism  of  which  Professor  Dowden 
speaks.  This  which  we  omit,  this  literature  of 
knowledge,  is  powerful  literature,  though  its 
main  purpose  is  not  to  move,  but  to  teach. 
We  are  only  reducing  our  field  so  that  we  can 
survey  it.  For  our  uses  just  now  we  shall 
find  pure  literature  taking  the  three  standard 
forms:  the  poem,  the  essay,  and  the  story.  It 
is  the  influence   of  the  English  Bible  on  this 

132 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

large  field  of  literature   which  we   are  to   ob- 
serve. 

Just  for  safety's  sake,  accept  another  narrow- 
ing of  the  field.  The  effect  of  the  Bible  and  its 
religious  teaching  on  the  writer  himself  is  a 
separate  study,  and  is  for  the  most  part  left  out 
of  consideration.  It  sounds  correct  when  Mil- 
ton says:  "He  who  would  not  be  frustrate  of 
his  power  to  write  well  ought  himself  to  be  a 
true  poem."  But  there  is  Milton  himself  to 
deal  with;  irreproachable  in  morals,  there  are 
yet  the  unhappy  years  of  his  young  wife  to 
trouble  us,  and  there  were  his  daughters,  who 
were  not  at  peace  with  him,  and  whom  after 
their  service  in  his  blindness  he  yet  stigmatizes 
in  his  will  as  "undutiful  children."  T-hen,  if 
you  think  of  Shelley  or  Byron,  you  are  troubled 
by  their  lives;  or  even  Carlyle,  the  very  master 
of  the  Victorian  era — one  would  not  like  to  scan 
his  life  according  to  the  laws  of  true  poetry. 
Then  there  is  Coleridge,  falling  a  prey  to  opium 
until,  as  years  came,  conscience  and  will  seemed 
to  go.  Only  a  very  ardent  Scot  will  feel  that  he 
can  defend  Robert  Burns  at  all  points,  and  we 
would  be  strange  Americans  if  we  felt  that 
Edgar  Allen  Poe  was  a  model  of  propriety.  That 
is  a  large  and  interesting  field,  but  the  Bible 
seems  even  to  gain  power  as  a  book-making  book 

133 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

when  it  lays  hold  on  the  book-making  proclivi- 
ties of  men  who  are  not  prepared  to  yield  to  its 
personal  power.  They  may  get  away  from  it 
as  religion;  they  do  not  get  away  from  it  as 
literature. 

The  first  and  most  notable  fact  regarding  the 
influence  of  the  Bible  on  English  literature  is 
the  remarkable  extent  of  that  influence.  It  is 
literally  everywhere.  If  every  Bible  in  any 
considerable  city  were  destroyed,  the  Book  could 
be  restored  in  all  its  essential  parts  from  the 
quotations  on  the  shelves  of  the  city  public 
library.  There  are  works,  covering  almost  all 
the  great  literary  writers,  devoted  especially  to 
showing  how  much  the  Bible  has  influenced  themr 

The  literary  effect  of  the  King  James  version 
at  first  was  less  than  its  social  effect;  but  in 
that  very  fact  lies  a  striking  literary  influence. 
For  a  long  time  it  formed  virtually  the  whole 
literature  which  was  readily  accessible  to  ordi- 
nary Englishmen.  We  get  our  phrases  from  a 
thousand  books.  The  common  ta^lk  of  an  in- 
telligent man  shows  the  effect  of  many  authors 
upon  his  thinking.  Our  fathers  got  their  phrases 
from  one  great  book.  Their  writing  and  their 
speaking  show  the  effect  of  that  book. 

It  is  a  study  by  itself,  and  yet  it  is  true  that 
world  literature  is,  as  Professor  Moulton   puts  it, 

134 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

the  autobiography  of  civilization.  "A  national 
literature  is  a  reflection  of  the  national  history." 
Books  as  books  reflect  their  authors.  As  litera- 
ture they  reflect  the  public  opinion  which  gives 
them  indorsement  When,  therefore,  public 
opinion  keeps  alive  a  certain  group  of  books, 
there  is  testimony  not  simply  to  those  books, 
but  to  the  public  opinion  which  has  preserved 
them.  The  history  of  popular  estimates  of  litera- 
ture is  itself  most  interesting.  On  the  other 
hand,  some  writers  have  been  amusingly  overesti- 
mated. No  doubt  Edward  Fitzgerald,  who  gave 
us  the  "Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam"  did 
some  other  desirable  work;  but  Professor  Moul- 
ton  quotes  this  paragraph  from  a  popular  life  of 
Fitzgerald,  published  in  Dublin:  "Not  Greece 
of  old  in  her  palmiest  days — the  Greece  of  Homer 
and  Demosthenes,  of  Eschylus,  Euripides,  and 
Sophocles,  of  Pericles,  Leonidas,  and  Alcibiades, 
of  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  of  Solon  and 
Lycurgus,  of  Apelles  and  Praxiteles — not  even 
this  Greece,  .prolific  as  she  was  in  sages  and 
heroes,  can  boast  such  a  lengthy  bead-roll  as 
Ireland  can  of  names  immortal  in  history!" 
But  "this  was  for  Irish  consumption."  And 
popular  opinion  and  even  critical  opinion  has 
sometimes  gone  far  astray  in  its  destructive 
tendency.     There  were  authoritative  critics  who 

135 


y 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

declared  that  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  and  Cole- 
ridge wrote  "unintelligible  nonsense."  George 
Meredith's  style,  especially  in  his  poetry,  was 
counted  so  bad  that  it  was  not  worth  reading. 
We  are  all  near  enough  the  Browning  epoch  to 
recall  how  the  obscurity  of  his  style  impressed 
some  and  oppressed  others.  Alfred  Austin,  in 
1869,  said  that  "Mr.  Tennyson  has  no  sound 
pretensions  to  be  called  a  great  poet."  Con- 
temporary public  opinion  is  seldom  a  final 
gauge  of  strength  for  a  piece  of  literature.  It 
takes  the  test  of  time.  How  many  books  we 
have  seen  come  on  the  stage  and  then  pass  off 
again!  Yet  the  books  that  have  stayed  on  the 
stage  have  been  kept  there  by  public  opinion 
expressing  itself  in  the  long  run.  The  social 
influence  of  the  King  James  version,  creating  a 
public  taste  for  certain  types  of  literature,  tended 
to  produce  them  at  once. 

English  literature  in  these  three  hundred 
years  has  found  in  the  Bible  three  influential 
elements:    style,  language,  and  material. 

First,  the  style  of  the  King  James  version  has 
influenced  English  literature  markedly.  Pro- 
fessor Gardiner  opens  one  of  his  essays  with  the 
dictum  that  "in  all  study  of  English  literature, 
if  there  be  any  one  axiom  which  may  be  accepted 
without  question,  it  is  that  the  ultimate  stan- 

136 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

dard  of  English  prose  style  is  set  by  the  King 
James  version  of  the  Bible."  ^  You  almost 
measure  the  strength  of  writing  by  its  agree- 
ment with  the  predominant  traits  of  this  ver- 
sion. Carlyle's  weakest  works  are  those  that 
lose  the  honest  simplicity  of  its  style  in  a  forced 
turgidity  and  affected  roughness.  His  Heroes 
and  Hero  Worship  or  his  French  Revolution 
shows  his  distinctive  style,  and  yet  shows  the 
influence  of  this  simpler  style,  while  his  Frederick 
the  Great  is  almost  impossible  because  he  has 
given  full  play  to  his  broken  and  disconnected 
sentences.  On  the  other  hand,  Macaulay  fails 
us  most  in  his  striving  for  effect,  making  nice 
balance  of  sentences,  straining  his  "either-or," 
or  his  "  while-one- was-doing-this-the-other-was- 
doing-that."  Then  his  sentences  grow  involved, 
and  his  paragraphs  lengthen,  and  he  swings 
away  from  the  style  of  the  King  James  version. 
"One  can  say  that  if  any  writing  departs  very 
V  far  from  the  characteristics  of  the  English  Bible 
it  is  not  good  English  writing." 

The  second  element  which  English  literature 
finds  in  the  Bible  is  its  language.  The  words  of 
the  Bible  are  the  familiar  ones  of  the  English 
tongue,  and  have  been  kept  familiar  by  the  use 
of  the  Bible.     The  result  is  that  "the  path  of 

1  Atlantic  Monthly,  May,  1900,  p.  684. 
137 


V 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

literature  lies  parallel  to  that  of  religion.  They 
are  old  and  dear  companions,  brethren  indeed 
of  one  blood;  not  always  agreeing,  to  be  sure; 
squabbling  rather  in  true  brotherly  fashion  now 
and  then;  occasionally  falling  out  very  seriously 
and  bitterly;  but  still  interdependent  and  neces- 
sary to  each  other." ^  Years  ago  a  writer  re- 
marked that  every  student  of  English  literature, 
or  of  English  speech,  finds  three  works  or  sub- 
jects referred  to,  or  quoted  from,  more  frequently 
than  others.  These  are  the  Bible,  tales  of  Greek 
and  Roman  mythology,  and  Msojp's  Fables.  Of 
these  three,  certainly  the  Bible  furnishes  the 
largest  number  of  references.  There  is  reason 
for  that.  A  writer  wants  an  audience.  Very 
few  men  can  claim  to  be  independent  of  the 
public  for  which  they  write.  There  is  nothing 
the  public  will  be  more  apt  to  understand  and 
appreciate  quickly  than  a  passing  reference  to 
the  English  Bible.  So  it  comes  about  that  when 
Dickens  is  describing  the  injustice  of  the  Murd- 
stones  to  little  David  Copperfield,  he  can  put 
the  whole  matter  before  us  in  a  parenthesis: 
"Though  there  was  One  once  who  set  a  child 
in  the  midst  of  the  disciples."  Dickens  knew 
that  his  readers  would  at  once  catch  the  meaning 
of  that  reference,  and  would  feel  the  contrast 

*  Chapman,  English  Literature  in  Account  with  Religion. 
138 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

between  the  scene  he  was  describing  and  that 
simple  scene.  Take  any  of  the  great  books  of 
literature  and  black  out  the  phrases  which  mani- 
festly come  directly  from  the  English  Bible,  and 
you  would  mark  them  beyond  recovery. 
/:  But  English  literature  has  found  more  of  its 
1/  material  in  the  Bible  than  anything  else.  It  has 
looked  there  for  its  characters,  its  illustrations, 
its  subject-matter.  We  shall  see,  as  we  consider 
individual  writers,  how  many  of  their  titles  and 
complete  works  are  suggested  by  the  Bible. 
It  is  interesting  to  see  how  one  idea  of  the 
Scripture  will  appear  and  reappear  among  many 
writers.  Take  one  illustration.  The  Faust  story 
is  an  effort  to  make  concrete  one  verse  of  Scrip- 
ture: "What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  shall 
gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul.^" 
Professor  Moulton  reminds  us  that  the  Faust 
legend  appeared  first  in  the  Middle  Ages.  In 
early  English,  Marlowe  has  it,  Calderon  put  it 
into  Spanish,  the  most  familiar  form  of  it  is 
Goethe's,  while  Philip  Bailey  has  called  his 
account  of  it  Festus,  In  each  of  those  forms 
the  same  idea  occurs.  A  man  sells  his  soul  to 
the  devil  for  the  gaining  of  what  is  to  him  the 
world.  That  is  one  of  a  good  many  ideas  which 
the  Bible  has  given  to  literature.  The  prodigal 
son  has  been  another  prolific  source  of  literary 

139 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

writing.     The  guiding  star  is  another.     Others 
will  readily  come  to  mind. 

With  that  simple  background  let  our  minds 
move  down  the  course  of  literary  history.  Style, 
language,  material — we  will  easily  think  how 
much  of  each  the  Bible  has  given  to  all  our  great 
writers  if  their  names  are  only  mentioned.  There 
are  four  groups  of  these  writers. 

1.  The  Jacobean,  who  wrote  when  and  just 
after  our  version  was  made. 

2.  The  Georgian,  who  graced  the  reigns  of 
the  kings  whose  name  the  period  bears. 

3.  The  Victorian. 

4.  The  American. 

There  is  an  attractive  fifth  group  comprising 
our  present-day  workers  in  the  realm  of  pure 
literature,  but  we  must  omit  them  and  give  our 
attention  to  names  that  are  starred. 

,y  It  is  familiar  that  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth, 
"England  became  a  nest  of  singing  birds."  In 
the  fifty  years  after  the  first  English  theater  was 
erected,  the  middle  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  fifty 
dramatic  poets  appeared,  many  of  the  first 
order.  Some  were  distinctly  irreligious,  as  were 
many  of  the  people  whose  lives  they  touched. 
Such  men  as  Ford,  Marlowe,  Massinger,  Webster, 
Beaumont,   and   Fletcher   stand   like   a   chorus 

140 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

around  Shakespeare  and  Ben  Jonson  as  leaders. 
As  Taine  puts  it:  "They  sing  the  same  piece 
together,  and  at  times  the  chorus  is  equal  to  the 
solo;  but  only  at  times."  ^  Cultured  people 
to-day  know  the  names  of  most  of  these  writers, 
but  not  much  else,  and  it  does  not  heavily  serve 
our  argument  to  say  that  they  felt  the  Puritan 
influence;  but  they  all  did  feel  it  either  directly 
or  by  reaction. 

Edmund  Spenser  and  his  friend.  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  had  closed  their  work  before  the  King 
James  ^erstooj  appeared,  yet  the  Faerie  Queens 
in  its  religious  theory  is  Puritan  to  the  core, 
and  Sidney  is  best  remembered  by  his  para- 
phrases of  Scripture.  The  influence  of  both 
was  even  greater  in  the  Jacobean  than  in  their 
own  period. 

It  is  hardly  fair  even  to  note  the  Elizabethan 
Shakespeare  as  under  the  influence  of  the  King 
James  version.  The  Bible  influenced  him  mark- 
edly, but  it  was  the  Genevan  version  prepared 
during  the  exile  of  ths  scholars  under  Bloody 
Mary,  or  the  Bishops'  Bible  prepared  under 
Elizabeth.  Those  versions  were  familiar  as 
household  facts  to  him.  "No  writer  has  as- 
similated the  thoughts  and  reproduced  the 
words  of  Holy  Scripture  more  copiously  than 

'  History  of  English  Literature,  chap.  iii. 
141 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Shakespeare."  Dr.  Furnivall  says  that  "he  is 
saturated  with  the  Bible  story,"  and  a  century 
ago  Capel  Lloft  said  quaintly  that  Shakespeare 
k  /  "had  deeply  imbibed  the  Scriptures."  But  the 
/  King  James  version  appeared  only  five  years 
before  his  death,  and  it  is  in  some  sense  fairer 
to  say  that  Shakespeare  and  the  King  James 
version  are  formed  by  the  same  influence  as 
to  their  English  style.  The  Bishop  of  St. 
Andrews  even  devotes  the  first  part  of  his  book 
on  Shakespeare  and  the  Bible  to  a  study  of 
parallels  between  the  two  in  peculiar  forms  of 
speech,  and  thinks  it  "probable  that  our  trans- 
lators of  1611  owed  as  much  to  Shakespeare  as, 
or  rather  far  more  than,  he  owed  to  them."  ^ 
It  is  generally  agreed  that  only  two  of  his  works 
were  written  after  our  version  appeared.  Sev- 
eral other  writers  have  devoted  separate  vol- 
umes to  noting  the  frequent  use  by  Shakespeare 
of  Biblical  phrases  and  allusions  and  characters 
taken  from  early  versions.  It  is  a  very  tempting 
field,  and  we  pass  it  by  only  because  it  is  hardly 
in  the  range  of  the  study  we  are  now  making. 
,  When,  however,  we  come  to  John  Milton 
^  (1608-1674),  we  remember  he  was  only  three 
years  old  when  our  version  was  issued;  that 
when  at  fifteen,  an  undergraduate  in  Cambridge, 

^  Wordsworth,  Shakesyeare  s  Knowledge  and  Use  of  the  Bible,  p.  9. 

142 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

he  made  his  first  paraphrases,  casting  two  of 
the  Psalms  into  meter,  the  version  he  used  was 
this  famihar  one.  A  biographer  says  he  began 
the  day  always  with  the  reading  of  Scripture  and 
kept  his  memory  deeply  charged  with  its  phrases. 
In  later  life  the  morning  chapter  was  generally 
from  the  Hebrew,  and  was  followed  by  an  hour 
of  silence  for  meditation,  an  exercise  whose  in- 
fluence no  man's  style  could  escape.  As  a 
writer  he  moved  steadily  toward  the  Scripture 
and  the  religious  teaching  which  it  brought  his 
age.  His  earlier  writing  is  a  group  of  poems 
largely  secular,  which  yet  show  in  phrases  and 
expressions  much  of  the  influence  of  his  boyhood 
study  of  the  Bible,  as  well  as  the  familiar  use  of 
mythology.  The  memorial  poem  "Lycidas," 
for  example,  contains  the  much-quoted  reference 
to  Peter  and  his  two  keys — 

"Last  came  and  last  did  go 
The  pilot  of  the  Galilean  lake; 
Two  massy  keys  he  bore  of  metals  twain, 
(The  golden  opes,  the  iron  shuts  amain)." 

But  after  these  poems  came  the  period  of  his 
prose,  the  work  which  he  supposed  was  the  abid- 
ing work  of  his  life.  George  William  Curtis  told 
a  friend  that  our  civil  war  changed  his  own 
literary  style:    "That  roused  me  to  see  that  I 

143 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

had  no  right. to  spend  my  Hfe  in  Hterary  leisure. 
I  felt  that  I  must  throw  myself  into  the  struggle 
for  freedom  and  the  Union.  I  began  to  lecture 
and  to  write.  The  style  took  care  of  itself. 
But  I  fancy  it  is  more  solid  than  it  was  thirty 
years  ago."  That  is  what  happened  to  Milton 
when  the  protectorate  came.^  It  made  his  style 
more  solid.  He  did  not  mean  to  live  as  a  poet. 
He  felt  that  his  best  energies  were  being  put  into 
his  essays  in  defense  of  liberty,  on  the  freedom 
of  the  press  and  on  the  justice  of  the  beheading 
of  Charles,  in  which  service  he  sacrificed  his 
sight.  All  of  it  is  shot  through  with  Scripture 
quotations  and  arguments,  and  some  of  it,  at 
least,  is  in  the  very  spirit  of  Scripture.  The  plea 
for  larger  freedom  of  divorce  issued  plainly  from 
his  own  bitter  experience;  but  his  main  argu- 
ment roots  in  a  few  Bible  texts  taken  out  of 
their  connection  and  urged  with  no  shadow  of 
question  of  their  authority.  Indeed,  when  he 
comes  to  his  more  religious  essays,  his  heavy 
argument  is  that  there  should  be  no  religion 
permitted  in  England  which  is  not  drawn  di- 
rectly from  the  Bible;  which,  therefore,  he  urges 
must  be  common  property  for  all  the  people. 
There  is  a  curious  bit  of  evidence  that  the  men 
of  his  own  time  did  not  realize  his  power  as  a 

1  Strong,  The  Theology  of  the  Poets. 
144 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

poet.  In  Pierre  Bayle's  critical  survey  of  the 
literature  of  the  time,  he  calls  Milton  "the 
famous  apologist  for  the  execution  of  Charles 
I.,"  who  "meddled  in  poetry  and  several  of  whose 
poems  saw  the  light  during  his  life  or  after  his 
death!"  For  all  that,  Milton  was  only  working 
on  toward  his  real  power,  and  his  power  was  to 
be  shown  in  his  service  to  religion.  His  three 
great  poems,  in  the  order  of  their  value,  are,  of 
course,  "Paradise  Lost,"  "Samson  Agonistes," 
and  "  Paradise  Regained . ' '  Whoever  knows  any- 
thing of  Milton  knows  these  three  and  knows 
they  are  Scriptural  from  first  to  last  in  phrase, 
in  allusion,  and,  in  part  at  least,  in  idea.  There 
is  not  time  for  extended  illustration.  One  in- 
stance may  stand  for  all,  which  shall  illustrate 
how  Milton's  mind  was  like  a  garden  where  the 
seeds  of  Scripture  came  to  flower  and  fruit.  He 
will  take  one  phrase  from  the  Bible  and  let  it 
grow  to  a  page  in  "Paradise  Lost."  Here  is  an 
illustration  which  comes  readily  to  hand.  In 
the  Genesis  it  is  said  that  "the  spirit  of  God 
moved  on  the  face  of  the  waters."  The  verb 
suggests  the  idea  of  brooding.  There  is  only 
one  other  possible  reference  (Psalm  xxiv:  2) 
which  is  included  in  this  statement  which  Mil- 
ton makes  out  of  that  brief  word  in  the  Gen- 
esis: 

10  145 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

"On  the  watery  calm 
His  broadening  wings  the  Spirit  of  God  outspread, 
And  vital  virtue  infused,  and  vital  warmth 
Throughout  the  fluid  mass,  but  downward  purged 
The  black  tartareous  cold  infernal  dregs, 
Adverse  to  life;    then  formed,  then  con-globed, 
Like  things  to  like;    the  rest  to  several  place 
Disparted,  and  between  spun  out  the  air — 
And  earth  self-balanced  on  her  center  swung." 

Any  one  familiar  with  Milton  will  recognize 
that  as  a  typical  instance  of  the  way  in  which 
a  seed  idea  from  the  Scripture  comes  to  flower 
and  fruit  in  him.  The  result  is  that  more  people 
have  their  ideas  about  heaven  and  hell  from 
Milton  than  from  the  Bible,  though  they  do  not 
know  it. 

•  It  seems  hardly  fair  to  use  John  Bunyan 
(1628-1688)  as  an  illustration  of  the  influence 
of  the  English  Bible  on  literature,  because  his 
chief  work  is  composed  so  largely  in  the  language 
of  Scripture.  Pilgrim's  Progress  is  the  most 
widely  read  book  in  the  English  language  after 
the  Bible.  Its  phrases,  its  names,  its  matter 
are  either  directly  or  indirectly  taken  from  the 
Bible.  It  has  given  us  a  long  list  of  phrases 
which  are  part  of  our  literary  and  religious 
capital.  Thackeray  took  the  motto  of  one  of 
his  best-known  books  from  the  Bible;    but  the 

146 


Vi 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

title.  Vanity  Fair,  comes  from  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
When  a  discouraged  man  says  he  is  "in  the 
slough  of  despond,"  he  quotes  Bunyan;  and 
when  a  popular  evangelist  tells  the  people  that 
the  burden  of  sin  will  roll  away  if  they  look  at 
the  cross,  "according  to  the  Bible,"  he  ought 
to  say  according  to  Bunyan.  But  all  this  was 
only  the  outcome  of  the  familiarity  of  Bunyan 
with  the  Scripture.  It  was  almost  all  he  did 
know  in  a  literary  way.  Macaulay  says  that 
"he  knew  no  language  but  the  English  as  it 
was  spoken  by  the  common  people;  he  had 
studied  no  great  model  of  composition,  with  the 
exception  of  our  noble  translation  of  the  Bible. 
But  of  that  his  knowledge  was  such  that  he  might 
have  been  called  a  living  concordance."  ^ 

After  these  three — Shakespeare,  Milton,  and 
Bunyan — ^there  appeared  another  three,  very 
much  their  inferiors  and  having  much  less  in- 
fluence on  literary  history.  I  mean  Dry  den, 
Addison,  and  Pope.  It  is  not  necessary  to  credit 
the  Scripture  with  much  of  Dryden's  spirit,  nor 
with  much  of  his  style,  and  certainly  not  with 
his  attitude  toward  his  fellows;  but  it  is  a  con- 
stant surprise  in  reading  Dryden  to  discover 
how  familiar  he  was  with  the  King  James  ver- 
sion.    Walter  Scott  insists  that  Dryden  was  at 

1  History  of  England,  vol.  III.,  p.  220. 
147 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

heart  serious,  that  "his  indehcacy  was  like  the 
forced  irapudence  of  a  bashful  man."  That  is 
generous  judgment.  But  there  is  this  to  be 
said:  as  he  grows  more  serious  he  falls  more 
into  Bible  words.  If  he  writes  a  political  pam- 
phlet he  calls  it  "Absalom  and  Ahithophel." 
In  it  he  holds  the  men  of  the  day  up  to  scorn 
under  Bible  names.  They  are  Zimri  and  Shimei, 
and  the  like.  When  he  is  falling  into  bitterest 
satire,  his  writing  abounds  in  these  Biblical 
allusions  which  could  be  made  only  by  one  who 
was  very  familiar  with  the  Book.  Quotations 
cannot  be  abundant,  of  course,  but  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  this  sort  of  thing: 

"Sinking,  he  left  his  drugget  robe  behind. 
Borne  upward  by  a  subterranean  wind, 
The  mantle  fell  to  the  young  prophet's  part. 
With  double  portion  of  his  father's  art.". 

In  his  Epistles  there  is  much  of  the  same  sort. 
When  he  writes  to  Congreve  he  speaks  of  the 
fathers,  and  says: 

"Their's  was  the  giant  race  before  the  flood." 

Farther  on  he  says: 

"Our  builders  were  with  want  of  genius  curst. 

The  second  temple  was  not  like  the  first." 

148 


THE    GREATEST.  ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Now  Dryden  may  have  been,  as  Macaulay  said, 
an  "illustrious  renegade,"  but  all  his  writing 
shows  the  influence  of  the  language  and  the 
ideas  of  the  King  James  version.  Whenever  we 
sing  the  "Veni  Creator"  we  sing  John  Dryden. 
So  we  sing  Addison  in  the  paraphrase  of 
Scripture,  which  Haydn's  music  has  made 
familiar : 

"The  spacious  firmament  on  high, 
With  all  the  blue  ethereal  sky." 

While  Dryden  yielded  to  his  times,  Addison  did 
not,  and  the  Spectator  became  not  only  a  literary 
but  a  moral  power.  In  the  effort  to  make  it  so 
he  was  throv/n  back  on  the  largest  moral  in- 
fluence of  the  day,  the  Bible,  and  throughout 
the  Spectator  and  through  all  of  Addison's 
writing  you  find  on  all  proper  occasions  the 
Bible  pressed  to  the  front.  Here  again  Taine 
puts  it  strikingly:  "It  is  no  small  thing  to  make 
morality  fashionable;  Addison  did  it,  and  it 
remains  fashionable." 

If  we  speak  of  singing,  we  may  remember 
that  we  sing  the  hymn  of  even  poor  little  dwarfed 
invalid  Alexander  Pope.  He  was  born  the  year 
Bunyan  died,  born  at  cross-purposes  with  the 
world.  He  could  write  a  bitter  satire,  like  the 
"Dunciad";   he  could  give  the  world  The  Iliad 

149 


u 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

and  The  Odyssey  in  such  Enghsh  that  we  know 
them  far  better  than  in  the  Greek  of  Homer; 
but  in  those  rare  moments  when  he  was  at  his 
better  self  he  would  write  his  greater  poem, 
"The  Messiah,"  in  which  the  movement  of 
Scripture  is  outlined  as  it  could  be  only  by  one 
who  knew  the  English  Bible.  And  when  we 
sing— 

"Rise,  crowned  with  light,  imperial  Salem,  rise" — 

it  is  worth  while  to  realize  that  the  voice  that 
first  sung  it  was  that  of  the  irritable  little  poet 
who  found  some  of  his  scant  comfort  in  the  grand 
words  and  phrases  and  ideas  of  our  English 
Bible. 
i  With  these  six — Shakespeare,  Milton,  Bunyan, 
Dryden,  Addison,  and  Pope — the  course  of  the 
Jacobean  literature  is  sufficiently  measured. 
There  are  many  lesser  names,  but  these  are  the 
ones  which  made  it  an  epoch  in  literature,  and 
these  are  at  their  best  under  the  power  of  the 
Bible. 

In  the  Georgian  group  we  need  to  call  only 
five  great  names  which  have  had  creative  in- 
fluence in  literature.  Ordinary  culture  in  litera- 
ture will  include  some  acquaintance  with  each 
of  them.     In  the  order  of  their  death  they  are 

150 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Shelley  (1822),  Byron  (1824),  Coleridge  (1831), 
Walter  Scott  (1832),  and  Wordsworth  (1850). 
The  last  long  outlived  the  others;  but  he  be- 
longs with  them,  because  he  was  born  earlier 
than  any  other  in  the  group  and  did  his  chief 
work  in  their  time  and  before  the  later  group 
appeared.  Except  Wordsworth,  all  these  were 
gone  before  Queen  Victoria  came  to  the  throne 
in  1837.  Three  other  names  could  be  called: 
Keats,  Robert  Burns,  and  Charles  Lamb.  All 
would  illustrate  what  we  are  studying.  Keats 
least  of  all  and  Burns  most.  They  are  omitted 
here  not  because  they  did  not  feel  the  influence 
of  the  English  Bible,  not  because  they  do  not 
constantly  show  its  influence,  but  because  they 
are  not  so  creative  as  the  others;  they  have  not 
so  influenced  the  current  of  literature.  At  any 
rate,  the  five  named  will  represent  worthily  and 
with  suflScient  completeness  the  Georgian  period 
/  of  English  literature. 
\y(  Nothing  could  reveal  more  clearly  than  this 
'  list  how  we  are  distinguishing  the  Bible  as 
literature  from  the  Bible  as  an  authoritative 
book  in  morals.  One  would  much  dislike  to 
credit  the  Bible  with  any  part  of  the  personal  life 
of  Shelley  or  Byron.  They  were  friends;  they 
were  geniuses ;  but  they  were  both  badly  afflicted 
with  common  moral  leprosy.     It  is  playing  with 

151 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

morals  to  excuse  either  of  them  because  he  was 
a  genius.  Nothing  in  the  genius  of  either  de- 
manded or  was  served  by  the  course  of  cheap 
immorality  which  both  practised.  It  was  not 
because  Shelley  was  a  genius  that  he  married 
Harriet  Westbrook,  then  ran  away  with  Mary 
Godwin,  then  tried  to  get  the  two  to  become 
friends  and  neighbors  until  his  own  wife  com- 
mitted suicide;  it  was  not  his  genius  that  made 
him  yield  to  the  influence  of  Emilia  Viviani 
and  write  her  the  poem  "  Epipsychidion,"  tell- 
ing her  and  the  world  that  he  "was  never  at- 
tached to  that  great  sect  who  believed  that  each 
one  should  select  out  of  the  crowd  a  mistress  or 
a  friend"  and  let  the  rest  go.  That  was  not 
genius,  that  was  just  common  passion;  and  our 
divorce  courts  are  full  of  Shelley s  of  that  type. 
So  Byron's  personal  immorality  is  not  to  be 
explained  nor  excused  on  the  ground  of  his 
genius.  It  was  not  genius  that  led  him  so 
astray  in  England  that  his  wife  had  to  divorce 
him,  and  that  public  opinion  drove  him  out  of 
the  land.  It  was  not  his  genius  that  sent  him 
to  visit  Shelley  and  his  mistress  at  Lake  Geneva 
and  seduce  their  guest,  so  that  she  bore  him  a 
daughter,  though  she  was  never  his  wife.  It  was 
not  genius  that  made  him  pick  up  still  another 
companion  out  of  several  in  Italy  and  live  with 

152 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

her  in  immoral  relation.  In  the  name  of  com- 
mon decency  let  no  one  stand  up  for  Shelley 
and  Byron  in  their  personal  characters!  There 
are  not  two  moral  laws,  one  for  geniuses  and  one 
for  common  people.  Byron,  at  any  rate,  was 
never  deceived  about  himself,  never  blamed  his 
genius  nor  his  conscience  for  his  wrong.  These 
are  striking  lines  in  "Childe  Harold,"  in  which 
he  disclaims  all  right  to  sympathy,  because, 

"The  thorns  which  I  have  reaped  are  of  the  tree 
I  planted, — they  have  torn  me  and  I  bleed. 
I  should  have  known  what  fruit  would  spring  from 
such  a  tree." 

Shelley's  wife  would  not  say  that  for  him. 
"In  all  Shelley  did,"  she  says,  "he  at  the  time 
of  doing  it  believed  himself  justified  to  his  own 
conscience."  Well,  so  much  the  worse  for 
Shelley!  Geniuses  are  not  the  only  men  who 
can  find  good  reason  for  doing  what  they  want 
to  do.  One  of  Shelley's  critics  suggests  that  the 
trouble  was  his  introduction  into  personal  con- 
duct of  the  imagination  which  he  ought  to  have 
saved  for  his  writing.  Perhaps  we  might  explain 
Byron's  misconduct  by  reminding  ourselves  of 
his  club-foot,  and  applying  one  code  of  morals 
to  men  with  club-feet  and  another  to  men  with 
normal  feet. 

153 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

If  we  speak  of  the  influence  of  the  Bible  on 
these  men,  it  must  be  on  their  Hterary  work; 
and  when  we  find  it  there,  it  becomes  peculiar 
mark  of  its  power.  They  had  little  sense  of  it 
as  moral  law.  Their  consciences  approved  it 
and  condemned  themselves,  or  else  their  delicate 
literary  taste  sensed  it  as  a  book  of  power. 

This  is  notably  true  of  Shelley.  When  he  was 
still  a  student  in  Oxford  he  committed  himself 
to  the  opinion  of  another  writer,  that  "the  mind 
cannot  believe  in  the  existence  of  God."  He  tries 
to  work  that  out  fully  in  his  notes  on  '  'Queen 
Mab."  When  he  was  hardly  yet  of  age  he  him- 
self wrote  that  "The  genius  of  human  happiness 
must  tear  every  leaf  from  the  accursed  Book  of 
God,  ere  man  can  read  the  inscription  on  its 
heart."  He  once  said  that  his  highest  desire 
was  that  there  should  be  a  monument  to  himself 
somewhere  in  the  Alps  which  should  be  only  a 
great  stone  with  its  face  smoothed  and  this  short 
inscription  cut  in  it,  "Percy  Bysshe  Shelley, 
Atheist." 

It  would  seem  that  whatever  Shelley  drew  of 
strength  or  inspiration  from  the  Bible  would  be 
by  way  of  reaction;  but  it  is  not  so.  However 
he  may  have  hated  the  "accursed  Book  of  God," 
his  wife  tells  in  her  note  on  "The  Revolt  of  Islam  " 
that  Shelley  "debated  whether  he  should  devote 

154 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

himself  to  poetry  or  metaphysics,"  and,  resolving 
on  the  former,  he  "educated  himself  for  it,  en- 
gaging  himself   in   the   study    of   the   poets   of 
Greece,  England,  and  Italy.     To  these,  may  be 
added,"  she  goes  on,  "a  constant  perusal  of  por- 
tions of  the  Old  Testament,  the  Book  of  Psalms, 
Job,  Isaiah,  and  others,  the  sublime  poetry  of 
which  filled  him  with  delight."     Not  only  did 
he  catch  the  spirit  of  that  poetry,  but  its  phrases 
haunted  his  memory.     In  his  best  prose  work, 
which  he  called  A  Defense  of  Poetry,  there  is  an 
interesting   revelation    of    the   influence    of   his 
Bible  reading  upon  him.     Toward  the  end  of 
the   essay   these   two   sentences    occur:    "It   is 
inconsistent  with  this  division  of  our  subject  to 
cite  living  poets,  but  posterity  has  done  ample 
justice  to  the  great  names  now  referred  to.   Their 
errors  have  been  weighed  and  found  to  have 
been  dust  in  the  balance;    if  their  sins  are  as 
scarlet,  they  are  now  white  as  snow;   they  have 
been  washed  in  the  blood  of  the  mediator  and 
redeemer.  Time."     There  is  no  more  eloquent 
passage  in  the  essay  than  the  one  of  which  this 
is  part,  and  yet  it  is  full  of  allusion  to  this  Book 
from  which  all  pages  must  be  torn!     Even  in 
'  'Queen  Mab  "  he  makes  Ahasuerus,  the  wander- 
ing Jew,  recount  the  Bible  story  in  such  broad 
outlines  as  could  be  given  only  by  a  man  who 

155 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

was  familiar  with  it.  When  Shelley  was  in  Italy 
and  the  word  came  to  him  of  the  massacre  at 
Manchester,  he  wrote  his  "Masque  of  Anarchy." 
There  are  few  more  melodious  lines  of  his  writ- 
ing than  those  which  occur  in  this  long  poem  in 
the  section  regarding  freedom.  Four  of  those 
lines  are  often  quoted.  They  are  at  the  very 
heart  of  Shelley's  best  work.  Addressing  free- 
dom, he  says: 

"Thou  art  love:   the  rich  have  kissed 
Thy  feet,  and,  like  him  following  Christ, 
Gave  their  substance  to  the  free. 
And  through  the  rough  world  follow  thee." 

Page  after  page  of  Shelley  reveals  these  half- 
conscious  references  to  the  Bible.  There  were 
two  sources  from  which  he  received  his  pas- 
sionate democracy.  One  was  the  treatment  he 
received  at  Eton,  and  later  at  Oxford;  the  other 
is  his  frequent  reading  of  the  English  Bible,  even 
though  he  was  in  the  spirit  of  rebellion  against 
much  of  its  teaching.  In  Browning's  essay  on 
Shelley,  he  reaches  the  amazing  conclusion  that 
"had  Shelley  lived,  he  would  finally  have  ranged 
himself  with  the  Christians,"  and  seeks  to  justify 
it  by  showing  that  he  was  moving  straight  tow- 
ard the  positions  of  Paul  and  of  David.  Some 
of  us  may  not  see  such  rapid  approach,  but  that 

156 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Shelley  felt  the  drawing  of  God  in  the  universe 
is  plain  enough. 
.y  The  influence  of  the  Bible  is  still  more 
marked  on  Byron.  He  spent  his  childhood  years 
at  Aberdeen.  There  his  nurse  trained  him  in 
the  Bible;  and,  though  he  did  not  live  by  it,  he 
never  lost  his  love  for  it,  nor  his  knowledge  of 
it.  He  tells  of  his  own  experience  in  this  way: 
"I  am  a  great  reader  of  those  books  [the  Bible], 
and  had  read  them  through  and  through  before 
I  was  eight  years  old;  that  is  to  say,  the  Old 
Testament,  for  the  New  struck  me  as  a  task, 
but  the  other  as  a  pleasure."  ^  One  of  the  earliest 
bits  of  his  work  is  a  paraphrase  of  one  of  the 
Psalms.  His  physical  infirmity  put  him  at  odds 
with  the  world,  while  his  striking  beauty  drew 
to  him  a  crowd  of  admirers  who  helped  to  poison 
every  spring  of  his  genius.  Even  so,  he  held 
his  love  for  the  Bible.  While  Shelley  often  spoke 
of  it  in  contempt,  while  he  prided  himself  on  his 
divergence  from  the  path  of  its  teaching,  Byron 
never  did.  He  wandered  far,  but  he  always 
knew  it;  and,  though  he  could  hardly  find  terms 

,  to  express  his  contempt  for  the  Church,  there 
V'-;  is  no  line  of  Byron's  writing  which  is  a  slur 

■  at  the  Bible.     On  the  other  hand,  much  of  his 
work  reveals  a  passion  for  the  beauty  of  it  as 

^Taine,  English  Literature,  II.,  279. 
157 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

well  as  its  truth.  His  most  melodious  writing 
is  in  that  group  of  Hebrew  melodies  which  were 
written  to  be  sung.  They  demand  far  more 
than  a  passing  knowledge  of  the  Bible  both 
for  their  writing  and  their  understanding.  There 
is  a  long  list  of  them,  but  no  one  without  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  Bible  would  have  known  what  he 
meant  by  his  poem,  "The  Harp  the  Monarch 
Minstrel  Swept."  "Jephtha's  Daughter"  pre- 
sumes upon  a  knowledge  of  the  Old  Testament 
story  which  would  not  come  to  one  in  a  passing 
study  of  the  Bible.  "The  Song  of  Saul  Before 
his  Last  Battle"  and  the  poem  headed  "Saul" 
could  not  have  been  written,  nor  can  they  be  read 
intelligently  by  any  one  who  does  not  know  his 
Bible.  Among  Byron's  dramas,  two  of  which 
he  thought  most,  were,  "Heaven  and  Earth" 
and  "Cain."  When  he  was  accused  of  pervert- 
ing the  Scripture  in  "Cain,"  he  replied  that  he 
had  only  taken  the  Scripture  at  its  face  value. 
Both  of  the  dramas  are  not  only  built  directly  out 
of  Scriptural  events,  but  imply  a  far  wider  knowl- 
edge of  Scripture  than  their  mere  titles  suggest. 
\  /  There  are  striking  references  in  many  other 
poems,  even  in  his  almost  vile  poem,  "Don 
Juan."  The  most  notable  instance  is  in  the 
fifteenth  canto,  where  he  is  speaking  of  per- 
secuted sages  and  these  lines  occur: 

158 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

"Was  it  not  so,  great  Locke?   and  greater  Bacon? 
Great  Socrates  ?     And  Thou  Diviner  still, 
Whose  lot  it  is  by  men  to  be  mistaken, 
And  Thy  pure  creed  made  sanction  of  all  ill? 
Redeeming  worlds  to  be  by  bigots  shaken, 
How  was  Thy  toil  rewarded?" 

In  a  note  on  this  passage  Byron  says:    "As  it 

is  necessary  in  these  times  to  avoid  ambiguity, 

|i/I  say  that  I  mean  by  'Diviner  still'  Christ,     If 

^  ever  God  was  man — or  man  God — He  was  both. 

I  never  arraigned  His  creed,  but  the  use  or  abuse 

of  it.     Mr.  Canning  one  day  quoted  Christianity 

to  sanction    slavery,  and  Mr.  Wilberforce  had 

little  to  say  in  reply.     And  was  Christ  crucified 

that  black  men  might  be  scourged?     If  so,  He 

had  better  been  born  a  mulatto,  to  give  both 

colors  an  equal  chance  of  freedom,  or  at  least 

salvation."     Byron  could  live  far  from  the  in- 

N;  fluence  of  the  Bible  in  his  personal  life;   but  he 

never  escaped  its  influence  in  his  literary  work. 

/       Of  Coleridge  less  needs  to  be  said,  because  we 

If  think  of  him   so  much  in  terms   of  his   more 

meditative  musings,  v/hich   are  often  religious. 

He  himself  tells  of  long  and  careful  rereadings 

of  the  English  Bible  until  he  could  say:    In  the 

Bible  "there  is  more  that  finds  me  than  I  have 

experienced   in   all   other  books   together;     the 

words  of  the  Bible  find  me  at  greater  depths  of 

159 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

my  being."  Of  course,  that  would  influence  his 
writing,  and  it  did.  Even  in  the  "Rime  of  the 
Ancient  Mariner"  much  of  the  phraseology  is 
Scriptural.     When  the  albatross  drew  near, 

"As  if  it  had  been  a  Christian  soul. 
We  hailed  it  in  God's  name." 

When  the  mariner  slept  he  gave  praise  to  Mary, 
Queen  of  Heaven.  He  sought  the  shriving  of 
the  hermit-priest.  He  ends  the  story  because 
he  hears  "the  little  vesper  bell"  which  bids  him 
to  prayer.  When  you  read  his  "Hymn  Before 
Sunrise  in  the  Vale  of  Chamounix"  you  find 
yourself  reading  the  Nineteenth  Psalm.  He  calls 
on  the  motionless  torrents  and  the  silent  cata- 
racts and  the  great  Mont  Blanc  itself  to  praise 
God.  Coleridge  never  had  seen  Chamounix, 
nor  Mont  Blanc,  nor  a  glacier,  but  he  knew  his 
Bible.  So  he  has  his  Christmas  Carol  along  with 
all  the  rest.  His  poem  of  the  Moors  after  the 
Civil  War  under  Philip  II.  is  Scriptural  in  its 
phraseology,  and  so  is  much  else  that  he  wrote. 
Frankly  and  willingly  he  yielded  to  its  influence. 
In  his  "  Table  Talk  "  he  often  refers  to  the  value  of 
the  Bible  in  the  forming  of  literary  style.  Once 
he  said:  "Intense  study  of  the  Bible  will  keep 
any  writer  from  being  vulgar  in  point  of  style."  ^ 

1  June  14,  1830. 
IGO 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

.  i  The  very  mention  of  Coleridge  makes  one 
*^  think  of  Wordsworth.  They  had  a  Damon  and 
Pythias  friendship.  The  Words  worths  were 
poor;  they  had  only  seventy  pounds  a  year,  and 
they  were  not  ashamed.  Coleridge  called  them 
the  happiest  family  he  ever  saw.  Wordsworth 
was  not  narrowly  a  Christian  poet,  he  was  not 
always  seeking  to  put  Christian  dogma  into 
poetry,  but  throughout  he  was  expressing  the 
Christian  spirit  which  he  had  learned  from  the 
Bible.  His  poetry  was  one  long  protest  against 
banishing  God  from  the  universe.  It  was  literal- 
ly true  of  him  that  "the  meanest  flower  that 
grows  can  give  thoughts  that  too  often  lie  too  deep 
for  tears."  If  this  were  the  time  to  be  critical, 
one  would  think  that  too  much  was  sometimes 
made  of  very  minute  occurrences;  but  this 
tendency  to  get  back  of  the  event  and  see  how 
God  is  moving  is  learned  best  from  Scripture, 
where  Wordsworth  himself  learned  it.  If  you 
read  his  "Intimations  of  Immortality,"  or  the 
"Ode  to  Duty,"  or  "Tintern  Abbay,"  or  even 
the  rather  labored  "Excursion,"  you  find  your- 
self under  the  Scriptural  influence. 
1 1  There  remains  in  this  Georgian  group  the 
''  great  prose  master,  Walter  Scott.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone said  he  thought  Scott  the  greatest  of  his 
countrymen.   John  Morley  suggested  John  Knox 

11  161 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

instead.  Mr.  Gladstone  replied:  "No,  the  line 
must  be  drawn  firmly  between  the  writer  and 
the  man  of  action — no  comparison  there."  ^  He 
went  on  to  say  that  Burns  is  very  fine  and  true, 
no  doubt,  "but  to  imagine  a  whole  group  of 
characters,  to  marshal  them,  to  set  them  to 
work,  and  to  sustain  the  action,  I  must  count 
that  the  test  of  highest  and  most  diversified 
quality."  All  who  are  fond  of  Scott  will  realize 
how  constantly  the  scenes  which  he  is  describing 
group  themselves  around  religious  observances, 
how  often  men  are  held  in  check  from  deeds  of 
violence  by  religious  conception.  Many  of  these 
scenes  crystallize  around  a  Scriptural  event. 
\  Scott's  boyhood  was  spent  in  scenes  that  re- 
V  minded  him  of  the  power  the  Scripture  had. 
He  was  drilled  from  his  childhood  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  its  words  and  phrases,  and  while  his 
writing  as  a  whole  shows  more  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment influence  than  of  the  New,  even  in  his  style 
he  is  strongly  under  Bible  influence. 

The  preface  to  Guy  Mannering  tells  us  it  is 
J/  built  around  an  old  story  of  a  father  putting  a 
lad  to  test  under  guidance  of  an  ancient  astrolo- 
ger, shutting  him  up  in  a  barren  room  to  be 
tempted  by  the  Evil  One,  leaving  him  only  one 
safeguard,  a  Bible,  lying  on  the  table  in  the 

1  Morley,  Life  of  Gladstone,  vol.  iii,  p.  424. 
162 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

middle  of  the  room.  In  his  introduction  to 
The  Heart  of  Midlothian,  Scott  makes  one  of  the 
two  men  thrown  into  the  water  by  the  over- 
turned coach  remind  the  other  that  they  "can- 
not complain,  like  Cowley,  that  Gideon's  fleece 
remains  dry  while  all  around  is  moist;  this  is 
the  reverse  of  the  miracle."  A  little  later  a 
speaker  describes  novels  as  the  Delilahs  that 
seduce  wise  and  good  men  from  more  serious 
reading.  In  the  dramatic  scene  when  Jeanie 
Deans  faces  the  wretched  George  Staunton,  who 
has  so  shamed  the  household,  she  exclaims: 
"O  sir,  did  the  Scripture  never  come  into  your 
mind,  'Vengeance  is  mine,  and  I  will  repay 
it.?'"  "Scripture!"  he  sneers,  "why  I  had  not 
opened  a  Bible  for  five  years."  "Wae's  me, 
sir,"  said  Jeanie — "and  a  minister's  son,  too!" 
Anthony  Foster,  in  Kenilworth,  looks  down  on 
poor  Amy's  body  in  the  vault  into  which  she 
has  fallen,  in  response  to  what  she  thought  was 
Leicester's  whistle,  and  exclaims  to  Varney: 
"Oh,  if  there  be  judgment  in  heaven,  thou  hast 
deserved  it,  and  will  meet  it!  Thou  hast  de- 
stroyed her  by  means  of  her  best  affections — it 
is  the  seething  of  the  kid  in  the  mother's  milk!" 
And  when,  next  morning,  Varney  was  found 
dead  of  the  secret  poison  and  with  a  sneering 
sarcasm  on  his  ghastly  face,  Scott  dismisses  him 

163 


V 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

with  the  phrase:    "The  wicked  man,  saith  the 
Scripture,  hath  no  bonds  in  his  death." 

His  characters  use  freely  the  famihar  Bible 
events  and  phrases.  In  the  Fortunes  of  Nigel,  a 
story  of  the  very  period  when  our  King  James 
version  was  produced,  Hildebrod  declares  that 
if  he  had  his  way  Captain  Peppercull  should 
hang  as  high  as  Haman  ever  did.  In  Kenil- 
worth,  when  Leicester  gives  Varney  his  signet- 
ring,  he  says,  significantly:  "What  thou  dost, 
do  quickly."  Of  course,  Isaac,  the  Jew  in  Ivan- 
hoe,  exclaims  frequently  in  Old  Testament  terms. 
He  wishes  the  wheels  of  the  chariots  of  his 
enemies  may  be  taken  off,  like  those  of  the  host 
of  Pharoah,  that  they  may  drive  heavily.  He 
expects  the  Palmer's  lance  to  be  as  powerful  as 
the  rod  of  Moses,  and  so  on. 

Scott  was  writing  of  the  period  when  men 
stayed  themselves  with  Scripture,  and  his  men 
are  all  sure  of  God  and  Satan  and  angels  and 
judgment  and  all  eternal  things.  His  son-in- 
law  vouches  for  the  old  story  that  when  Sir 
Walter  was  on  his  death-bed  he  asked  Lock- 
hart  to  read  him  something  from  the  Book,  and 
when  Lockhart  asked,  "What  book.^"  Scott  re- 
plied: "Why  do  you  Sisk?  There  is  but  one 
book,  the  Bible." 
'    All  this  is  scant  justice  to  the  Georgian  group; 

164 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

but  it  may  give  a  hint  of  what  the  Bible  meant 
even  at  that  period,  the  period  when  its  grip 
on  men  was  most  lax  in  all  the  later  English 
history. 

1  It  is  in  the  Victorian  age  (1840-1900)  that  the 
/ 1  field  is  most  bewildering.     It  is  true,  as  Frederick 

f  Harrison  says,  that  "this  Victorian  age  has  no 
Shakespeare  or  Milton,  no  Bacon  or  Hume,  no 
Fielding  or  Scott — no  supreme  master  in  poetry, 
philosophy,  or  romance  whose  work  is  incor- 
porated with  the  thought  of  the  world,  who  is 
destined  to  form  an  epoch,  to  endure  for  cen- 
turies." ^  The  genius  of  the  period  is  more 
scientific  than  literary,  yet  we  would  be  helpless 
if  we  had  not  already  eliminated  from  our  dis- 
cussion everything  but  the  works  and  writers 
of  pure  literature.  The  output  of  books  has  been 
so  tremendous  that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
analyze  the  influences  which  have  made  them. 
There  are  in  this  Victorian  period  at  least  twelve 
great  English  writers  who  must  be  known,  whose 
[y  work  affects  the  current  of  English  literature. 
Many  other  names  would  need  mention  in  any 
full  history  or  any  minute  study;  but  it  is  not 
harsh  judgment  to  say  that  the  main  current 
of  literature  would  be  the  same  without  them. 

^  Early  Victorian  Literature,  p.  9 
165 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

A  few  of  these  lesser  names  will  come  to  mind, 
and  in  the  calling  of  them  one  realizes  the  in- 
fluence, even  on  them,  of  the  English  Bible. 
Anthony  Trollope  wrote  sixty  volumes,  the  titles 
of  most  of  which  are  now  popularly  unknown. 
He  told  George  Eliot  that  it  was  not  brains  that 
explained  his  writing  so  much,  but  rather  wax 
which  he  put  in  the  seat  of  his  chair,  which  held 
him  down  to  his  daily  stint  of  work.  He  could 
boast,  and  it  was  worth  the  boasting,  that  he 
had  never  wi'itten  a  line  which  a  pure  woman 
could  not  read  without  a  blush.  His  whole 
Framley  Parsonage  series  abounds  in  Bible  ref- 
erences and  allusions.  So  Charlotte  Bronte  is 
in  English  literature,  and  Jane  Eyre  does  prove 
what  she  was  meant  to  prove,  that  a  common- 
place person  can  be  made  the  heroine  of  a  novel; 
but  on  all  Charlotte  Bronte's  work  is  the  mark 
of  the  rectory  in  which  she  grew  up.  So  Thomas 
Grey  has  left  his  "Elegy  "  and  his  "Hymn  to  Ad- 
versity," and  some  other  writing  which  most  of 
us  have  forgotten  or  never  knew.  Then  there 
are  Maria  Edge  worth  and  Jane  Austen.  We 
may  even  remember  that  Macaulay  thought 
Jane  Austen  could  be  compared  with  Shakes- 
peare, as,  of  course,  she  can  be,  since  any  one 
can  be;  but  neither  of  these  good  women  has 
strongly   affected   the   literary    current.     Many 

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THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

others  could  be  named,  but  English  literature 
would  be  substantially  the  same  without  them; 
and,  though  all  might  show  Biblical  influence, 
they  would  not  illustrate  what  we  are  trying  to 
discover.  So  we  come,  without  apology  to  the 
unnamed,  to  the  twelve,  without  whom  English 
literature  would  be  different.  This  is  the  list 
.  in  the  order  of  the  alphabet :  Matthew  Arnold, 
^  Robert  Browning  (Mrs.  Browning  being  grouped 
as  one  with  him),  Carlyle,  Dickens,  George  Eliot, 
Charles  Kingsley,  Macaulay,  Ruskin,  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson,  Swinburne,  Tennyson,  and 
Thackeray. 

It  is  dangerous  to  make  such  a  list;  but  it 
can  be  defended.  Literary  history  would  not 
be  the  same  without  any  one  of  them,  unless 
possibly  Swinburne,  whose  claim  to  place  is 
rather  by  his  work  as  critic  than  as  creator. 
Nor  is  any  name  omitted  whose  introduction 
would  change  literary  history. 

Benjamin  Jowett  thought  Arnold  too  flippant 
on  religious  things  to  be  a  real  prophet.  At  any 
rate,  this  much  is  true,  that  the  books  in  which 
Arnold  dealt  with  the  fundamentals  of  religion 
are  his  profoundest  work.  In  his  poetry  the 
best  piece  of  the  whole  is  his  "Rugby  Chapel." 
His  Religion  and  Dogma  he  himself  calls  an  "es- 
say toward  a  better  apprehension  of  the  Bible." 

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THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

All  through  he  urges  it  as  the  one  Book  which 
needs  recovery.  "All  that  the  churches  can 
say  about  the  importance  of  the  Bible  and  its 
religion  we  concur  in."  The  book  throughout 
is  an  effort  to  justify  his  own  faith  in  terms  of 
the  Bible.  The  effort  is  sometimes  amusing, 
because  it  takes  such  a  logical  and  verbal  agility 
to  go  from  one  to  the  other;  but  he  is  always 
at  it.  He  is  afraid  in  his  soul  that  England  will 
swing  away  from  the  Bible.  He  fears  it  may 
come  about  through  neglect  of  the  B^jle  on  one 
hand,  or  through  wrong  teaching  about  it  on  the 
other.  Not  in  his  ideas  alone,  but  markedly  in 
his  style,  Arnold  has  felt  the  Biblical  influence. 
He  came  at  a  time  when  there  was  strong  temp- 
tation to  fall  into  cumbrous  German  ways  of 
speech.  Against  that  Arnold  set  a  simple 
phraseology,  and  he  held  out  the  English  Bible 
constantly  as  a  model  by  which  the  men  of 
England  ought  to  learn  to  write.  He  never 
gained  the  simplicity  of  the  old  Hebrew  sentence, 
and  sometimes  his  secondary  clauses  follow  one 
another  so  rapidly  that  a  reader  is  confused; 
but  his  words  as  a  whole  are  simple  and  direct. 
y  There  is  no  need  of  much  word  on  the  spell 
of  the  Bible  over  Robert  Browning  and  Mrs. 
Browning.  It  is  not  often  that  two  singing- 
birds  mate;  but  these  two  sang  in  a  key  pitched 

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THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

for  them  by  the  Scripture  as  much  as  by  any  one 
influence.  Many  of  their  greatest  poems  have 
definite  BibKcal  themes.  In  them  and  in  others 
BibHcal  allusions  are  utterly  bewildering  to  men 
who  do  not  know  the  Bible  well.  For  five  years 
(1841-1846)  Browning's  poems  appeared  under 
the  title  Bells  and  Pomegranates.  Scores  of 
people  wondered  then,  and  wonder  still,  what 
"Pippa  Passes"  and  "A  Blot  in  the  Scutcheon  " 
and  the  others  have  to  do  with  such  a  title. 
They  have  never  thought,  as  Browning  did,  of 
/  the  border  of  the  beautiful  robe  of  the  high  priest 
described  in  the  Book  of  Exodus.  The  finest 
poem  of  its  length  in  the  English  language  is 
Browning's  "Saul";  but  it  is  only  the  story  of 
David  driving  the  evil  spirit  from  Saul,  sweeping 
on  to  the  very  coming  of  Christ.  "The  Death 
in  the  Desert"  is  the  death  of  John,  the  beloved 
disciple.  "Karshish,  the  Arab  Physician"  tells 
in  his  own  way  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus.  The  text 
of  "Caliban  upon  Setebos"  is,  "Thou  thought- 
est  that  I  was  altogether  such  an  one  as  thyself." 
The  text  of  "  Cleon  "is,  "As  certain  of  your  own 
poets  have  said."  In  "Fifine  at  the  Fair"  the 
Cure  expounds  the  experience  of  Jacob  and  his 
stone-pillow  with  better  insight  than  some  bet- 
ter-known expositors  show.  In  "Pippa  Passes," 
when  Bluphocks,  the  English  vagabond,  is  intro- 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

duced,  Browning  seems  to  justify  his  appearance 
by  the  single  foot-note:  "He  maketh  His  sun  to 
rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth 
rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust";  and  Mr. 
Bluphocks  shows  himself  amusingly  familiar 
with  Bible  facts  and  phrases.  Mr.  Sludge,  "the 
Medium,"  thinks  the  Bible  says  the  stars  are 
"set  for  signs  when  we  should  shear  sheep,  sow 
corn,  prune  trees,"  and  describes  the  skeptic  in 
the  magic  circle  of  spiritual  "investigators"  as 
the  "guest  without  the  wedding-garb,  the  doubt- 
ing Thomas."  Some  one  has  taken  the  trouble 
to  count  five  hundred  Biblical  phrases  or  allusions 
in  "The  Ring  and  the  Book."  Mrs.  Browning's 
"'Drama  of  Exile"  is  the  woman's  side  of  the 
fall  of  Adam  and  Eve.  Ruskin  thought  her 
"Aurora  Leigh"  the  greatest  poem  the  century 
had  produced  at  that  time.  It  abounds  in 
Scriptural  allusions.  Browning  came  by  all  this 
naturally.  Raised  in  the  Church  by  a  father 
who  "delighted  to  surround  him  with  books, 
notably  old  and  rare  Bibles,"  and  a  mother 
Carlyle  called  "a  true  type  of  a  Scottish  gentle- 
woman," with  all  the  skill  in  the  Bible  that  that 
implies,  he  never  lost  his  sense  of  the  majesty 
of  the  movement  of  Scripture  ideas  and  phrases. 
We  need  spend  little  time  in  discussing  the 
influence  of  the  English  Bible  on  Thomas  Car- 

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THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

lyle.  He  does  not  often  use  the  Scripture  for 
his  main  theme;  but  he  is  constantly  making 
BibHcal  allusions.  On  a  railway  journey  when 
I  was  rereading  Carlyle's  Historical  Sketches,  I 
\x^ound  a  direct  Biblical  reference  for  every  five 
pages,  and  almost  numberless  allusions  beside. 
The  "Everlasting  Yea,"  of  which  he  says 
much,  he  gets,  as  you  at  once  recognize,  from 
the  Scripture.  His  "Heroes  and  Hero  Worship" 
is  based  on  an  idea  of  heroism  which  he  learned 
from  the  Bible.  He  is  an  Old  Testament  pro- 
phet of  present  times;  and,  while  he  degenerated 
into  a  scold  before  he  was  through  with  it,  he 
yet  spoke  with  the  thunderous  voice  of  a  true 
prophet,  and  much  of  the  time  in  the  language 
of  the  prophets.  Some  one  said  once  that  the 
only  real  reverence  Carlyle  ever  had  was  for 
the  person  of  Christ.  Certainly  there  is  no  note 
of  sneer,  but  of  the  profoundest  regard  for  the 
teaching,  the  ideas  and  the  history  of  the  Scrip- 
ture. 

,  The  name  of  Charles  Dickens  suggests  a  dif- 
ferent atmosphere.  He  is  a  New  Testament 
prophet.  Where  Carlyle  has  caught  the  spirit 
of  rugged  power  in  the  Old  Testament,  Dickens 
has  caught  the  sense  of  kindly  love  in  the  New 
Testament.  Dickens's  love  for  the  child,  the 
fact  that  he  could  draw  children  as  he  could  draw 

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THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

no  one  else  and  make  them  lovable,  suggests  the 
value  to  him  of  those  frequent  references  which 
he  makes  to  Christ  setting  a  child  in  the  midst 
of  the  disciples.  It  is  notable,  too,  how  often 
Dickens  uses  the  great  Scripture  phrases  for  his 
most  dramatic  climaxes.  There  are  not  in  litera- 
ture manj^  finer  uses  of  Scripture  than  the  scene 
in  Bleak  House,  where  the  poor  waif  Joe  is  dying, 
and  while  his  friend  teaches  him  the  Lord's 
y  Prayer  he  sees  the  light  coming.  A  Christmas 
'  season  without  Dickens's  Christmas  Carol  would 
be  incomplete;  but  there  again  is  the  Scripture 
idea  pressed  forward. 
\  George  Eliot  surely,  if  any  writer,  was  under 
the  spell  of  the  Scripture.  One  of  her  critics 
calls  her  the  historian  of  conscience.  All  of  her 
heroes  and  heroines  know  the  lash  of  the  law. 
She  knows  very  little  about  the  New  Testament, 
one  would  judge;  but  the  one  thing  about  which 
she  has  no  doubt  is  certainly  the  reign  of  moral 
law.  If  a  man  will  not  yield  to  its  power,  it  will 
break  him.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  breaking 
the  moral  law;  there  is  nothing  but  being  broken 
by  it.  Her  characters  are  always  quoting  the 
Bible.  They  preach  a  great  deal.  She  tells 
that  she  herself  wrote  Dinah  Morris's  sermon  on 
the  green  with  tears  in  her  eyes.  She  meant  it 
all.     While  her  own  religious  faith  was  clouded, 

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THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

^        lier  finest  characters  are  never  clouded  in  their 
V^     religious  faith,  and  she  grounds  their  faith  quite 
invariably  on  their  early  training  in  the  Scrip- 
ture.    It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  George  Eliot 
has  no  principal  story  which  has  not  in  it  a 
church,  and  a  priest  or  a  preacher,  with  all  that 
they  involve. 
^      Charles  Kings  ley  is  grouped  hardly  fairly  in 
this  list,  because  he  was  himseK  a  preacher,  and 
naturally  all  his  work  would  feel  the  power  of 
the  Book,  which  he  chiefly  studied.     Professor 
Masson  says  that  "there  is  not  one  of  his  novels 
which  has  not  the  power  of  Christianity  for  its 
theme."     No  voice  was  raised  more  effectively 
for  the  beginning  of  the  new  social  era  in  Eng- 
land than  his.    Alton  Locke  and  Yeast  are  epoch- 
making  books  in  the  life  of  the  common  people 
of  England.     Even  Hypatia,  which  is  supposed 
to  have  been  written  to  represent  entirely  pa- 
gan surroundings,   is  full   of  Bible  phrases  and 
ideas. 
]  ,      Lord  Macaulay  had  been  held  up  for  many  a 
day  as  one  of  the  masters  of  style.     Such  great 
writing  is  not  to  be  traced  to  any  one  influence. 
It  could  not  have  been  easy  to  write  as  Macau- 
lay   wrote.     Thackeray  may  have  exaggerated 
in  saying  that  Macaulay  read  twenty  books  to 
write  a  sentence,  and  traveled  a  hundred  miles 

173 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

to  make  a  description;  but  all  his  writing  shows 
the  power  of  taking  infinite  pains.  It  becomes 
the  more  important,  therefore,  that  Macaulay 
held  the  Bible  in  such  estimate  as  he  did.  "In 
calling  upon  Lady  Holland  one  day.  Lord 
Macaulay  was  led  to  bring  the  attention  of  his 
fair  hostess  to  the  fact  that  the  use  of  the  word 
*  talent'  to  mean  gifts  or  powers  of  the  mind, 
as  when  we  speak  of  men  of  talent,  came  from 
the  use  of  the  word  in  Christ's  parable  of  the 
talents.  In  a  letter  to  his  sister  Hannah  he  de- 
scribes the  incident,  and  says  that  Lady  Hol- 
land was  evidently  ignorant  of  the  parable.  'I 
did  not  tell  her,'  he  adds,  'though  I  might  have 
done  so,  that  a  person  who  professes  to  be  a 
critic  in  the  delicacies  of  the  English  language 
ought  to  have  the  Bible  at  his  fingers'  ends.'" 
That  Macaulay  practised  his  own  preaching  you 
would  quickly  find  by  referring  to  his  essays. 
Take  three  sentences  from  the  Essay  on  Milton: 
"  The  principles  of  liberty  were  the  scoff  of  every 
growing  courtier,  and  the  Anathema  Maranatha 
of  every  fawning  dean.  In  every  high  place 
worship  was  paid  to  Charles  and  James,  Belial 
and  Moloch,  and  England  propitiated  these  ob- 
scene and  cruel  idols  with  the  blood  of  her  best 
and  brightest  children.  Crime  succeeded  to 
crime,  and  disgrace  to  disgrace,  until  the  race, 

174 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

accursed  of  God  and  man,  was  a  second  time 
driven  forth  to  wander  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
and  to  be  a  by-word  and  a  shaking  of  the  head 
to  the  nations."  In  three  sentences  here  are 
six  allusions  to  Scripture.  In  that  same  essay, 
y  in  the  paragraphs  on  the  Puritans,  the  allusions 
are  a  multitude.  They  are  not  even  quoted. 
They  are  taken  for  granted.  In  his  Essay  on 
Machiavelli,  though  the  subject  does  not  sug- 
gest it,  he  falls  into  Scriptural  phrases  over  and 
over.  Listen  to  this,  "A  time  was  at  hand  when 
all  the  seven  vials  of  the  Apocalypse  were  to  be 
poured  forth  and  shaken  out  over  those  pleas- 
ant countries";  or  this,  "All  the  curses  pro- 
nounced of  old  against  Tyre  seemed  to  have 
fallen  on  Venice.  Her  merchants  already  stood 
afar  off  lamenting  for  their  great  city";  or  this, 
''In  the  energetic  language  of  the  prophet, 
Machiavelli  was  mad  for  the  sight  of  his  eyes 
which  he  saw." 

And  if  Macaulay  is  baffling  in  the  abundance 
Y  of  material,  surely  John  Ruskin  is  worse.  Car- 
lyle's  English  style  ran  into  excess  of  roughness; 
Macaulay's  ran  into  excess  of  balance  and  deli- 
cacy. John  Ruskin's  continued  to  be  the  smooth- 
est, easiest  style  in  our  English  literature.  He 
also  was  a  Hebraic  spirit,  but  of  the  gentler  type. 
Mr.  Chapman  calls  him  the  Elisha  to  Carlyle's 

175 


I 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Elijah,  a  capital  comparison/  Ruskin  is  one  of 
the  few  writers  who  have  told  us  what  formed 
their  style.  In  the  first  chapter  of  Prceterita  he 
pays  tribute  to  his  mother.  He  himself  chose 
to  read  Walter  Scott  and  Pope's  Homer;  but  he 
says:  "My  mother  forced  me  by  steady  daily 
toil  to  learn  long  chapters  of  the  Bible  by  heart, 
as  well  as  to  read  it,  every  syllable  aloud,  hard 
names  and  all,  from  Genesis  to  the  Apocalypse 
about  once  a  year;  and  to  that  discipline — 
patient,  accurate,  and  resolute — I  owe  not  only 
a  knowledge  of  the  Book  which  I  find  occasion- 
ally serviceable,  but  much  of  my  general  power 
of  taking  pains  and  the  best  part  of  my  taste 
in  literature."  He  thinks  reading  Scott  might 
have  led  to  other  novels  of  a  poorer  sort. 
Reading  Pope  might  have  led  to  Johnson's 
or  Gibbon's  English;  but  "it  was  impossible 
to  write  entirely  superficial  and  formal  Eng- 
lish" while  he  knew  "by  heart  the  thirty- 
second  of  Deuteronomy,  the  fifteenth  of  1 
Corinthians,  the  One  hundred  and  nineteenth 
Psalm,  or  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount."  In  the 
second  chapter  of  Prceterita  he  is  even  more  ex- 
plicit. "I  have  next  with  deeper  gratitude  to 
chronicle  what  I  owed  to  my  mother  for  the  reso- 
lute persistent  lessons  which  so  exercised  me  in 

1  English  Literature  in  Account  with  Religion, 
176 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

the  Scripture,  as  to  make  every  word  of  them 
famihar  in  my  ear  as  habitual  music,  yet  in  that 
f amiharity  reverenced  as  transcending  all  thought 
and  ordering  all  conduct."  He  tells  how  his 
mother  drilled  him.  As  soon  as  he  could  read 
she  began  a  course  of  Bible  work  with  him. 
They  read  alternate  verses  from  the  Genesis  to 
the  Revelation,  names  and  all.  Daily  he  had  to 
commit  verses  of  the  Scripture.  He  hated  the 
One  hundred  and  nineteenth  Psalm  most;  but 
he  lived  to  cherish  it  most.  In  his  old  Bible  he 
found  the  list  of  twenty-six  chapters  taught  by 
his  mother. 

Not  only  was  Ruskin  well  trained  in  the  Bible, 
\  but  he  was  a  great  teacher  of  it.  In  his  preface 
to  the  Crown  of  Wild  Olives  he  answers  his  critics 
by  saying  he  has  used  the  Book  for  some  forty 
years.  "My  endeavor  has  been  uniformly  to 
make  men  read  it  more  deeply  than  they  do; 
trust  it,  not  in  their  own  favorite  verses  only, 
but  in  the  sum  of  it  all;  treat  it  not  as  a  fetish 
or  a  talisman  which  they  are  to  be  saved  by  daily 
repetition  of,  but  as  a  Captain's  order,  to  be  held 
and  obeyed  at  their  peril."  In  the  introduction 
to  the  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture  he  urges  that 
we  are  in  no  danger  of  too  much  use  of  the  Bible. 
"We  use  it  most  reverently  when  most  habit- 
ually."    Many  of  Ruskin's  most  striking  titles 

12  177 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

come  straight  out  of  the  Scripture.  Crown  of 
Wild  Olives,  Seven  Lamps,  Unto  this  Last — all 
these  are  suggested  by  the  Bible. 

It  is  almost  superfluous  to  speak  of  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson.  John  Kelman  has  written  a 
whole  book  on  the  religion  of  Stevenson,  and  it 
is  available  for  all  readers.  He  was  raised  by 
Cummy,  his  nurse,  whose  library  was  chiefly  the 
Bible,  the  shorter  catechism,  and  the  Life  of 
Robert  Murray  McCheyne.  He  said  that  the 
fifty-eighth  chapter  of  Isaiah  was  his  special 
chapter,  because  it  so  repudiated  cant  and  de- 
manded a  self-denying  beneficence.  He  loved 
Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress;  but  "the  Bible 
most  stood  him  in  hand."  Every  great  story 
or  essay  shows  its  influence.  He,  was  not  criti- 
cal with  it;  he  did  not  understand  it;  he  did  not 
interpret  it  fairly;  but  he  felt  it.  His  Dr,  Jehyll 
and  Mr.  Hyde  is  only  his  way  of  putting  into 
modern  speech  Paul's  old  distinction  between 
the  two  men  who  abide  in  each  of  us.  They 
told  him  he  ought  not  to  work  in  Samoa,  and  he 
replied  that  he  could  not  otherwise  be  true  to 
the  great  Book  by  which  he  and  all  men  who 
meant  to  do  great  work  must  live.  Over  the 
shoulder  of  our  beloved  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
you  can  see  the  great  characters  of  Scripture 
pressing  him  forward  to  his  best  work. 

178 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Not  so  much  can  be  said  of  Swinburne.  There 
was  a  strong  infusion  of  acid  in  his  nature,  which 
no  influence  entirely  destroyed.  He  is  apt  to 
hve  as  a  Hterary  critic  and  essayist,  though  he 
supposed  himself  chiefly  a  poet.  His  own 
thought  of  poetry  can  be  seen  in  his  protest 
in  behalf  of  Meredith.  When  he  had  been  ac- 
cused of  writing  on  a  subject  on  which  he  had 
no  conviction  to  express  ("Modern  Love"),  Swin- 
burne denied  that  poets  ought  to  preach  any- 
way. "There  are  pulpits  enough  for  all  preach- 
ers of  prose,  and  the  business  of  verse  writing 
is  hardly  to  express  convictions."  Yet  it  is  im- 
possible to  forget  Milton  and  his  purpose  to 
"assert  Eternal  Providence,  and  justify  the  ways 
of  God  to  men."  Naturally,  most  poets  do 
preach  and  preach  well.  Wordsworth  declared 
he  wanted  to  be  considered  a  teacher  or  nothing. 
Mrs.  Browning  thought  that  poets  were  the  only 
truth-tellers  left  to  God.  But  Swinburne  could 
not  help  a  little  preaching  at  any  rate.  His 
"Masque  on  Queen  Bersaba"  is  an  old  miracle 
play  of  David  and  Nathan.  His  "Christmas 
Antiphones"  are  hardly  Christian,  though  they 
are  abundant  in  their  allusions  to  Scripture. 
The  first  is  a  prayer  for  peace  and  rest  in  the 
coming  of  the  new  day  of  the  birth  of  Christ. 
The  second  is  a  protest  that  neither  God  nor 

179 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

man  has  befriended  man  as  he  should,  and  the 
third  is  an  assurance  that  men  will  do  for  man 
even  if  God  will  not.  Now,  that  is  not  Chris- 
tian, but  the  Bible  phrases  are  all  through  it. 
So  when  he  writes  his  poem  bemoaning  Poland, 
he  needs  must  head  it  "Rizpah."  At  the  same 
time  it  must  be  said  that  Swinburne  shows  less 
of  the  influence  of  the  Bible  in  his  style  and 
in  his  spirit  than  any  other  of  our  great  English 
writers. 

We  come  back  again  into  the  atmosphere  of 
strong  Bible  influence  when  we  name  Alfred 
Tennyson.  When  Byron  died,  and  the  word 
came  to  his  father's  rectory  at  Somersby,  young 
Alfred  Tennyson  felt  that  the  sun  had  fallen 
from  the  heavens.  He  went  out  alone  in  the 
fields  and  carved  in  the  sandstone,  as  though  it 
were  a  monument:  "Byron  is  dead."  That  was 
in  the  early  stage  of  his  poetical  life.  At  first 
Carlyle  could  not  abide  Tennyson.  He  counted 
him  only  an  echo  of  the  past,  with  no  sense  for 
the  future;  but  when  he  read  Tennyson's  "The 
Revenge,"  he  exclaimed,  "Eh,  he's  got  the 
grip  o'  it";  and  when  Richard  Monckton  Milnes 
excused  himself  for  not  getting  Tennyson  a 
pension  by  saying  his  constituents  had  no  use 
for  poetry  anyway,  Carlyle  said,  "Richard 
Milnes,  in  the  day  of  judgment  when  you  are 

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THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

asked  why  you  did  not  get  that  pension,  you 
may  lay  the  blame  on  your  constituents,  but  it 
will  be  you  who  will  be  damned !"  Dr.  Henry  van 
Dyke  studied  Tennyson  to  best  effect  at  just 
)  this  point.  In  his  chapter  on  "The  Bible  in 
Tennyson"  are  many  such  sayings  as  these:  "It 
is  safe  to  say  that  there  is  no  other  book  which 
has  had  so  great  an  influence  upon  the  literature 
of  the  world  as  the  Bible.  We  hear  the  echoes 
of  its  speech  everywhere,  and  the  music  of  its 
familiar  phrases  haunts  all  the  field  and  grove 
of'  our  fine  literature.  At  least  one  cause  of  his 
popularity  is  that  there  is  so  much  Bible  in 
Tennyson.  We  cannot  help  seeing  that  the  poet 
owes  a  large  debt  to  the  Christian  Scriptures,  not 
only  for  their  formative  influence  on  his  mind 
and  for  the  purely  literary  material  in  the  way 
of  illustrations  and  allusions  which  they  have 
given  him,  but  also  for  the  creation  of  a  moral 
atmosphere,  a  medium  of  thought  and  feeling 
in  which  he  can  speak  freely  and  with  an  assur- 
ance of  sympathy  to  a  very  wide  circle  of 
readers." 

I  need  not  stop  to  indicate  the  great  poems 
in  which  Tennyson  has  so  often  used  Scripture. 
The  mind  runs  quickly  to  the  little  maid  in 
"Guinevere,"  whose  song,  "Late,  Late,  so  Late," 
is  only  a  paraphrase  of  the  parable  of  the  fool- 

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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

ish  virgins.  "In  Memoriam"  came  into  the 
skeptical  era  of  England,  with  its  new  challenge 
to  faith,  and  stopped  the  drift  of  young  men 
toward  materialism.  Recall  the  fine  use  he 
makes,  in  the  heart  of  it,  of  the  resurrection  of 
Lazarus,  and  other  Biblical  scenes.  Dr.  van 
Dyke's  "four  hundred  direct  references  to  the 
Bible"  do  not  exhaust  the  poems.  No  one  can 
get  Tennyson's  style  without  the  English  Bible, 
and  no  one  can  read  Tennyson  intelligently 
without  a  fairly  accurate  knowledge  of  the  Bible. 
In  this  Victorian  group  the  last  name  is 
Thackeray's.  He  is  another  whose  mother 
trained  him  in  the  English  Bible.  The  title  of 
Vanity  Fair  is  from  Pilgrim's  Progress,  but  the 
motto  is  from  the  Scripture;  and  he  wrote  his 
mother  regarding  the  book:  "What  I  want  is 
to  make  a  set  of  people  living  without  God  in 
the  world  (only  that  is  a  cant  phrase.)"  It  is 
certain  his  mother  did  not  count  it  a  cant  phrase, 
for  he  learned  it  from  the  Scripture.  The  sub- 
title of  his  Adventures  of  Philip  says  he  is  to  show 
who  robbed  him,  who  helped  him,  and  who 
passed  him  by.  Thackeray  got  those  expressions 
from  the  Bible.  Somewhere  very  early  in  any 
of  his  works  he  reveals  the  influence  of  his  child- 
hood and  manhood  knowledge  of  the  English 
Bible. 

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THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

All  this  about  the  Victorian  group  is  meant 
to  be  very  familiar  to  any  who  are  fresh  from 
the  reading  of  literature.  They  are  great 
names,  and  they  have  differences  as  wide  as  the 
poles;  but  they  have  this  in  common,  that  they 
have  drunk  lightly  or  deeply  from  the  same 
fountain;  they  have  drawn  from  it  ideas,  al- 
lusions, literary  style.  Each  of  them  has  weak- 
ened as  he  has  gotten  farther  from  it,  and 
loyalty  to  it  has  strengthened  any  one  of  them. 

Turn  now  to  the  American  group  of  writers. 
If  we  except  theological  writers  with  Jonathan 
Edwards,  Horace  Bushnell,  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
'  and  their  like,  and  political  writers  with  Jeffer- 
son, Webster,  and  their  like,  the  list  need  not 
be  a  long  one.  Only  one  writer  in  our  narrower 
.  sense  of  literature  must  be  named  in  the  earlier 
\^\  day — ^Benjamin  Franklin.  In  the  period  before 
the  Civil  War  must  be  named  Edgar  Allan  Poe 
(died  1849)  and  Washington  Irving  (died  1859). 
The  Civil  War  group  is  the  large  one,  and  its 
names  are  those  of  the  later  group  as  well.  Let 
them  be  alphabetical,  for  convenience:  William 
Cull  en  Bryant,  poet  and  critic;  George  William 
Curtis,  essayist  and  editor;  Emerson,  our 
noblest  name  in  the  sphere  of  pure  essay  litera- 
ture;   Hawthorne,  the  novelist  of  conscience,  as 

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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Socrates  was  its  philosopher;  OHver  Wendell 
Holmes,  whose  "two  chief  hatreds  were  ortho- 
doxy in  religion  and  heterodoxy  in  medicine"; 
James  Russell  Lowell,  essayist  and  poet,  apt  to 
live  by  his  essays  rather  than  by  his  poetry; 
Longfellow,  whose  "Psalm  of  Life"  and  "Hia- 
watha" have  lived  through  as  much  parody  and 
ridicule  as  any  two  bits  of  literature  extant, 
and  have  lived  because  they  are  predestined 
to  live;  Thoreau,  whose  Walden  may  show,  as 
Lowell  said,  how  much  can  be  done  on  little 
capital,  but  which  has  the  real  literary  tang  to  it; 
and  Whittier,  whose  poetry  is  sung  the  world 
around. 

That  makes  only  twelve  names  from  Franklin 
to  Whittier.  Others  could  be  included;  but 
they  are  not  so  great  as  these.  No  one  of  these 
could  be  taken  out  of  our  literature  without 
affecting  it  and,  in  some  degree  at  least,  chang- 
ing the  current  of  it.  This  is  not  to  forget 
Bret  Harte  nor  Samuel  L.  Clemens.  But  each 
is  dependent  for  his  survival  on  a  taste  for  a 
certain  kind  of  humor,  not  delicate  like  Irving's 
and  Holmes's,  but  strong  and  sudden  and  a  bit 
sharp.  If  we  should  forget  the  "Luck  of  Roar- 
ing Camp,"  "Truthful  James,"  and  the" Heathen 
Chinee,"  we  would  also  forget  Bret  Harte.  We 
are  not  apt  to  forget  Tom  Sawyer,  nor  perhaps 

184 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

The  Innocents  Abroad,  but  we  are  forgetting  much 
else  of  Mark  Twain.  Whitman  is  not  named. 
His  claims  are  familiar,  but  in  spite  of  his  admir- 
ers he  seems  so  charged  with  a  sensuous  egotism 
that  he  is  not  apt  to  be  a  formative  influence  in 
literary  history.  It  is  still  interesting,  however, 
to  remember  how  frequently  he  reveals  his  read- 
ing of  Scripture. 
/       Fortunately,  all  these  writers  are  so  near,  and 

t/  their  work  is  so  familiar,  that  details  regarding 
them  are  not  needed.  Two  or  three  general 
words  can  be  said.  In  the  first  place,  observe 
the  high  moral  tone  of  all  these  first-grade 
writers,  and,  indeed,  of  the  others  who  may  be 
spoken  of  as  in  second  rank.  There  is  not  a 
meretricious  or  humiliating  book  in  the  whole 
collection.  There  is  not  one  book  which  has 
lived  in  American  literature  which  has  the  tone 
of  Fielding's  Tom  Jones.  Whether  it  is  that  the 
Puritan  strain  continues  in  us  or  not,  it  is  true 

V  that  the  American  literary  public  has  not  taken 
happily  to  stories  that  would  bring  a  blush  in 
public  reading.  Professor  Richardson,  of  Dart- 
mouth, gives  some  clue  to  the  reason  of  that. 
He  says  that  "since  1870  or  1880  in  America 
there  has  been  a  marked  increase  of  strength 
of  theistic  and  spiritual  belief  and  argument 
among  scientific  men,   students  of  philosophy, 

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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

religious  'radicals,'  and  others."  He  adds  that 
while  much  contemporary  American  literature 
and  thought  is  outside  the  accepted  orthodox 
lines,  yet  "it  is  not  hostile  to  Christianity;  to 
the  principles  of  its  Founder  it  is  for  the  most 
part  sincerely  attached.  On  the  other  hand, 
materialism  has  scarcely  any  hold  upon  it." 
Then  follows  a  very  notable  sentence  which  is 
sustained  by  the  facts:  "Not  an  American  book 
of  the  first  class  has  ever  been  written  by  an 
atheist  or  denier  of  immortality."  That  sen- 
tence need  not  offend  an  admirer  of  Walt  Whit- 
man, for  he  "accepts  both  theism  and  the  doc- 
trine of  the  future  life."  American  thought  has 
remained  loyal  to  the  great  Trinity,  God,  Free- 
dom, and  Immortality.  So  it  comes  about  that 
while  there  are  a  number  of  these  writers  who 
could  be  put  under  the  ban  of  the  strongly 
orthodox  in  religion,  every  one  of  them  shows 
the  effect  of  earlj  training  in  religion  and  in 
the   Scripture.^ 

Another  thing  to  be  said  is  that  America  has  a 
unique  history  among  great  nations  in  that  it 
has  never  been  affected  by  any  great  religious 
influence  except  that  which  has  issued  from  the 
Scriptures.     No  religion  has  ever  been  influential 

'  This  is  fully  worked  out  in  Professor  Richardson's  American 
Literature,  with  ample  illustration  and  argument. 

186 


^. 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

in  America  except  Christianity.  For  many- 
years  there  have  been  sporadic  and  spasmodic 
efforts  to  extend  the  influence  of  Buddhism  or 
other  Indian  cults.  They  have  never  been  suc- 
cessful, because  the  American  spirit  is  practical, 
and  not  meditative.  We  are  not  an  introspec- 
tive people.  We  do  not  look  within  ourselves 
for  our  religion.  Whatever  moral  and  religious 
influence  our  literature  shows  gets  back  first  or 
last  to  our  Scriptures.  The  point  of  view  of 
nature  that  is  taken  by  our  writers  like  Bryant 
and  Thoreau  is  that  of  the  Nineteenth  Psalm. 
Moreover,  we  have  been  strongly  under  the 
English  influence.  Irving  insisted  that  we  ought 
to  be,  that  we  were  a  young  nation,  that  we 
ought  frankly  to  follow  the  leadership  of  more 
experienced  writers.  Longfellow  thought  we 
had  gone  too  far  that  way,  and  that  our  poets,  at 
least,  ought  to  be  more  independent,  ought  to 
write  in  the  spirit  of  America  and  not  of  tradi- 
tional poetry.  Whether  we  ought  to  have  yielded 
to  it  or  not,  it  is  true  that  English  influence 
has  told  very  strongly  upon  us,  and  the  writers 
who  have  influenced  our  writers  most  have  been 
those  whom  we  have  named  as  being  themselves 
under  the  Bible  influence. 

We  need  not  go  into  detail  about  these  writers, 
though  they  are  most  attractive.     Bryant  did 

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THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

for  us  what  Wordsworth  did  for  England.  He 
made  nature  seem  vocal.  "Thanatopsis  "  is  not 
a  Christian  poem  in  the  narrow  sense  of  the 
word,  and  yet  it  could  hardly  have  been  written 
except  under  Christian  influence.  His  own  ge- 
nial, beautiful  character  was  itself  a  tribute  to 
Christian  civilization,  and  his  life,  as  critic  and 
essayist,  has  left  an  impression  which  we  shall 
not  soon  lose.  Professor  Richardson  thinks 
that  the  three  problematical  characters  in  Ameri- 
can literature  are  Emerson,  Hawthorne,  and 
Poe.  The  shrewdest  estimate  of  Poe  that  has 
ever  been  given  us  is  in  Lowell's  Fable  for  Critics: 

"There   comes   Poe   with   his   raven   like   Barnaby 

Rudge, 
Three-fifths   of   him   genius,   and   two-fifths   sheer 

fudge. 
Who  has  written  some  things  quite  the  best  of 

their  kind. 
But  the  heart  somehow  seems  all  squeezed  out  by 

the  mind." 

That  says  it  exactly.  Poe  knew  many  horrible 
situations,  but  he  did  not  know  the  way  out; 
and  of  all  our  American  writers  laying  claim  to 
place  in  the  first  class  Poe  shows  least  influence 
of  the  Bible,  and  apparently  needs  it  most. 

Irving   was   the   first   American    writer   who 
stood  high  enough  to  be  seen  across  the  water. 

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THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

Thackeray's  most  beautiful  essay  is  on  Irving  and 
Macaulay,  who  died  just  one  month  apart.  In 
it  he  describes  Irving  as  the  best  intermediary 
between  the  nations,  teUing  us  Americans  that 
the  EngHsh  are  still  human,  and  assuring  the 
English  that  Americans  are  already  human. 
Irving  was  trained  early  and  thoroughly  in  the 
Bible.  All  his  life  he  was  an  old-fashioned 
Episcopalian  with  no  concern  for  new  religious 
j/  ideas  and  with  no  rough  edges  anywhere. 
Charles  Dudley  Warner,  speaking  of  Irving's 
moral  quality,  says:  "I  cannot  bring  myself  to 
exclude  it  from  a  literary  estimate,  even  in  the 
face  of  the  current  gospel  of  art  for  art's  sake."  ^ 
Like  Scott,  he  "recognized  the  abiding  value 
in  literature  of  integrity,  sincerity,  purity,  char- 
ity, faith.  These  are  beneficences,  and  Irving's 
literature,  walk  around  it  and  measure  it  by 
whatever  critical  instruments  you  will,  is  a 
beneficent  literature." 

Then  there  is  Emerson,  a  son  of  the  manse 
V  and  once  a  minister  himself.  He  was,  therefore, 
perfectly  familiar  with  the  English  Bible.  He 
did  not  accept  it  in  all  its  religious  teaching. 
Indeed,  we  have  never  had  a  more  marked  in- 
dividualist in  our  American  public  life  than 
Emerson.     At  every  point  he  was  simply  him- 

*  American  Men  of  Letters  Series,  Washington  Irving,  p.  302. 
189 


\ 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

self.  There  is  very  little  quotation  in  his  writ- 
ing, very  little  visible  influence  of  any  one  else. 
He  was  not  a  follower  of  Carlyle,  though  he  was 
his  friend.  If  there  is  any  precedent  for  the 
construction  of  his  sentences,  and  even  of  his 
essays,  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  Hebrew  prophets. 
As  some  one  puts  it,  "he  uttered  sayings."  In 
many  of  his  essays  there  is  no  particular  reason 
why  the  paragraphs  should  run  one,  two,  three, 
and  not  three,  two,  one,  or  two,  one,  three,  or 
in  any  other  order.  But  Mr.  Emerson  was  just 
himself.  It  is  yet  true  that  "his  value  for  the 
world  at  large  lies  in  the  fact  that  after  all  he 
is  incurably  religious."  It  is  true  that  he  could 
not  see  any  importance  in  forms,  or  in  ordinary 
declarations  of  faith.  "He  would  fight  no  bat- 
tle for  prelacy,  nor  for  the  Westminster  confes- 
sion, nor  for  the  Trinity,  but  as  against  atheism, 
pessimism,  and  materialism,  he  was  an  ally  of 
Christianity."  The  influence  of  the  Bible  on 
Emerson  is  more  marked  in  his  spirit  than  in 
anything  else.  Once  in  a  while,  as  in  that  fa- 
miliar address  at  Concord  (1873),  you  run  across 
Scripture  phrases:  "Shall  not  they  who  receive 
the  largest  streams  spread  abroad  the  healing 
waters?"  That  figure  appears  in  literature  only 
in  the  Bible,  and  there  are  others  like  it  in  his 
writings. 

190 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

As  for  Longfellow,  he  is  shot  through  with 
Scripture.  No  man  who  did  not  know  Scripture 
in  more  than  a  passing  way  could  have  written 
such  a  sentence  as  this:  "There  are  times  when 
the  grasshopper  is  a  burden,  and  thirsty  with  the 
heat  of  labor  the  spirit  longs  for  the  waters  of 
Shiloah,  that  go  softly."  There  are  two  strik- 
ingly beautiful  expressions  from  Scripture.  Take 
another  familiar  saying  in  the  same  essay  when 
he  says  the  prospect  for  poetry  is  brightening, 
since  but  a  short  time  ago  not  a  poet  "moved 
the  wing  or  opened  the  mouth  or  peeped."  He 
did  not  run  across  that  in  general  current  writ- 
ing. He  got  that  directly  from  thQ  Bible.  In 
his  poems  is  an  amazing  amount  of  reference 
to  the  Bible.  One  would  expect  much  in  the 
"Courtship  of  Miles  Standish,"  for  that  is  a 
story  of  the  Puritans,  and  they  spoke,  naturally, 
in  terms  of  the  Bible;  yet,  of  course,  they  could 
not  do  it  in  Longfellow's  poem,  if  Longfellow 
did  not  know  the  language  of  the  Bible  very  well. 
One  might  not  expect  to  find  it  so  much  in 
"Evangeline,"  but  it  is  there  from  beginning  to 
end.     In  "Acadia,"  the  cock  crowed 

"With  the  self -same 
Voice  that  in  ages  of  old  had  startled  the  penitent 
Peter." 

191 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

And, 

"Wild  with  the  winds  of  September, 
Wrestled  the  trees  of  the  forest,  as  Jacob  of  old 
with  the  angel." 

Evangeline  saw  the  moon  pass 

"Forth  from  the  folds  of  the  cloud,  and  one  star 
followed  her  footsteps. 
As  out  of  Abraham's  tent  young  Ishmael 
Wandered  with  Hagar." 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  that  sort  of  thing  in  his 
writing.  He  has  done  for  many  what  he  did 
for  Lowell  one  day.  Discouraged  in  settling 
the  form  of  a  new  edition  of  his  own  poems, 
Lowell  took  up  a  volume  of  Longfellow  just  to 
see  the  type,  and  presently  found  that  he  had 
been  reading  two  hours.  He  wrote  Longfellow 
he  could  understand  his  popularity,  saying: 
"You  sang  me  out  of  all  my  worries."  That  is 
a  great  thing  to  do,  and  Longfellow  learned  from 
the  Scripture  how  to  do  that  in  the  "Psalm  of 
Life"  and  all  his  other  poems. 

We  need  only  a  word  about  Lowell  himself. 
He  was  the  son  of  a  minister,  and  so  knew  the 
Bible  from  his  infancy.  He  belonged  to  the 
Brahman  caste  himself,  but  a  good  deal  of  the 
ruggedness  of  the  Old  Testament  got  into  his 
writing.     It  is  in  "The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal." 

192 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

It  is  in  his  plea  for  international  copyright  where 
the  familiar  lines  occur: 

I  "In  vain  we  call  old  notions  fudge, 

And  bend  our  conscience  to  our  dealing, 
The  Ten  Commandments  will  not  budge. 
And  stealing  will  continue  stealing." 

There  is  hint  of  it  in  his  quizzical  lines  about 
himself  in  the  Fable  for  Critics.  He  says  that 
he  is  in  danger  of  rattling  away 

"Until  he  is  as  old  as  Methusalem, 
At  the  head  of  the  march  to  the  last  New  Jerusa- 
lem." 

Whittier  needs  no  words  of  ours.  His  hymns 
are  part  of  our  religious  equipment.  "Snow- 
bound" and  all  the  rest  of  the  beautiful,  quiet, 
Quaker-like  writing  of  this  beloved  poet  are 
among  our  national  assets.  We  join  in  his  sor- 
row as  he  writes  the  doom  of  Webster  and  his 
fame,  and  we  do  not  wonder  that  he  chose  for 
it  the  Scriptural  title  "Ichabod." 

Whatever  is  to  be  said  about  an  individual 
here  or  there,  it  is  true  that  great  American  lit- 
erature shows  the  influence  of  the  Bible.  Like 
everything  else  in  America,  it  has  been  founded 
on  a  religious  purpose.  Writers  in  all  lines  have 
been  trained  in  the  Bible.  If  they  feel  any 
religious  influence  at  all,  it  is  the  Bible  influence. 

13  193 


u 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

,  ■  This  has  been  a  long  journey  from  Shake- 
'•^  speare  to  Whittier,  and  it  leaves  untouched  the 
great  field  of  present-day  writers.  Let  the  un- 
starred  names  wait  their  time.  Among  them 
I  are  many  who  can  say  in  their  way  what  Hall 
Caine  has  said  of  himself:  "I  think  I  know  my 
Bible  as  few  literary  men  know  it.  There  is  no 
book  in  the  world  like  it,  and  the  finest  novels 
ever  written  fall  far  short  in  interest  of  any  one 
of  the  stories  it  tells.  Whatever  strong  situa- 
tions I  have  in  my  books  are  not  of  my  creation, 
but  are  taken  from  the  Bible.  The  Deemster  is 
a  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  The  Bondman  is 
the  story  of  Esau  and  Jacob.  The  Scapegoat  is 
the  story  of  Eli  and  his  sons,  but  with  Samuel 
as  a  little  girl;  and  The  Manxman  is  the  story  of 
David  and  Uriah/'  Take  up  any  of  the  novels 
of  the  day,  even  the  poorer  ones,  but  notably 
the  better  ones,  and  see  how  uniformly  they  show 
the  Scriptural  influence  in  material,  in  idea,  and 
in  spirit.  What  the  literature  of  the  future  will 
be  no  one  can  say.  This  much  is  as  sure  as  any 
fact  in  literary  history,  that  the  English  Bible 
is  part  of  the  very  fiber  of  great  literature  from 
the  day  it  first  appeared  in  our  tongue  to  this 
hour. 


LECTURE  V 

THE    KING    JAMES    VERSION — ITS    INFLUENCE    ON 
ENGLISH   AND   AMERICAN   HISTORY 

Y  nPHE  King  James  version  of  the  Bible  is 
^  only  a  book.  What  can  a  book  do  in  his- 
tory? Well,  whatever  the  reason,  books  have 
played  a  large  part  in  the  movements  of  men, 
specially  of  modern  men. 

They  have  markedly  influenced  the  opinion 
of  men  about  the  past.  It  is  commonly  said  that 
Hume's  History  of  England,  defective  as  it  is, 
has  yet  "by  its  method  revolutionized  the  writ- 
ing of  history,"  and  that  is  true.  Nearer  our 
own  time,  Carlyle's  Life  of  Cromwell  reversed  the 
judgment  of  history  on  Cromwell,  gave  all 
readers  of  history  a  new  conception  of  him  and 
his  times  and  of  the  movement  of  which  he 
was  the  life.  After  the  Restoration  none  were 
so  poor  as  to  do  Cromwell  reverence  until  Car- 
lyle's hook  gave  him  anew  to  the  world. 

There  are  instances  squarely  in  our  own  time 
by  which  their  mighty  influence  may  be  tested. 

195 


^THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

They  are  of  books  of  almost  ephemeral  value 
save  for  the  student  of  history.  As  literature 
,  -.  they  will  be  quickly  forgotten;  but  as  forces 
must  be  reckoned  with.  There  is  Uncle 
f2im'£.j£^fe'     It  would  be  absurd  to  say  that 

[it  brought  the  American  Civil  War,  or  freed 
the  negroes,  or  saved  the  Union.  It  did  none 
of  those  great  things.  Yet  it  is  not  at  all  ab- 
surd to  name  it  among  the  potent  powers  in  all 

j  three.     It  is  not  to  our  purpose  whether  it  is 

'true  or  not  as  a  statement  of  the  whole  fact. 
Doubtless  it  was  .rot  true  of  the  general  and 

,  common  circumstances  of  Southern  slavery;  but 
everything  in  it  was  possible,  and  even  frequent 
enough  so  that  it  could  not  be  questioned.  It 
pretended  no  more.  But  its  influence  was  sim- 
ply tremendous.     In  book  form  it  became  avail- 

'able  in  1852,  and  within  three  years,  1855,  it 
was  common  property  of  English-speaking  peo- 
ple. No  other  book  ever  produced  so  efxtraor- 
dinary  an  effect  so  quickly  in  the  public  mind.^ 
It  held  up  slavery  to  judgment.  It  crystallized 
the  thoughts  of  common  people.  The  work  of 
those  strenuous  years  in  the  '60's  could  not  have 
been  done  without  the  result  of  that  book.  It 
made  history.  Come  nearer  our  own  day.  We 
could  not  be  long  in  London  without  feeling 

1  Rhodes,  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  i,  pp.  185-303. 
196 


THE     GREATEST.    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

the  concern  of  the  better  people  for  conditions 
in  the  East  End.  A  new  social  impulse  has 
seized  them.  To  be  sure,  it  lacks  much  yet  of 
success;  but  more  has  been  done  than  most 
people  realize.  The  new  movement,  the  awaken- 
ing of  that  social  sense,  traces  back  to  the  book 
of  Gen.  ¥/illiam  Booth,  In  Darkest  England 
(1890).  It  has  helped  to  change  the  life  of  a 
large  part  of  London. 

On  this  side,  the  new  concern  for  city  condi- 
tions dates  from  the  book  of  a  newspaper  re- 
porter, Jacob  A.  Riis,  HowHhe  Other  Half  Lives. 
It  thrust  the  Other  Half  into  such  prominence 
that  it  has  never  been  possible  to  forget  it. 
Marked  advance  in  all  American  cities,  in  legis- 
lation and  life,  goes  straight  back  to  it.  Name 
one  other  book  still  in  the  field  of  social  service, 
even  so  unpleasant,  so  terrible,  so  obnoxious  a 
book  as  Upton  Sinclair's  The  Jungle.  It  started 
and  sustained  movements  which  have  unsettled 
business  and  political  life  ever  since  it  appeared. 
It  made  some  conditions  vivid,  unescapable. 

Do  not  misunderstand  the  argument.  No 
man  can  tell  v/hat  will  be  said  in  the  histories 
a  century  from  now  about  these  lesser  books. 
We  can  never  go  beyond  guesses  as  to  the  whole 
cause  of  any  chain  of  events.^     As  time  passes, 

1  MacPhail,  Essays  on  Puritanism^  p.  278. 
197 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

incidental  elements  in  the  causes  gradually  sink 
out  of  sight  and  a  few  great  forces  take  the 
whole  horizon.  Whatever  the  histories  a  cen- 
tury from  now  say  about  the  relative  place  of 
such  books  as  we  have  named,  it  is  certain  that 
they  have  influenced  the  movements  mightily. 
The  literary  histories  will  say  nothing  at  all 
about  them.  They  are  not  great  literature,  but 
they  were  born  of  a  passion  of  the  times  and 
voiced  and  aroused  it  anew, 
j^v  When,  therefore,  it  is  urged  that  the  English 
jBible  has  influenced  history,  it  is  not  making  an 
/undue  claim  for  it.  When  it  is  further  urged 
'  that  of  all  books  in  English  literature  it  has  been 
most  influential,  it  has  most  made  history,  it 
has  most  determined  great  movements,  the 
argument  only  claims  for  it  the  highest  place 
among  books. 

And  it  would  not  be  surprising  if  it  should 
t  have  such  influence.  It  is  the  one  great  piece 
V  \  of  English  literature  which  is  universal  property. 
Since  the  day  it  was  published  it  has  been  kept 
available  for  everybody.  No  other  book  has 
ever  had  its  chance.  English-speaking  people 
have  always  been  essentially  religious.  They 
have  always  had  a  profound  regard  for  the  terms, 
the  institutions,  the  purposes  of  religion.  Partly 
that  has  been  maintained  by  the  Bible;   but  the 

198 


u 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Bible  in  its  turn  has  been  maintained  by  it.  So 
it  has  come  about  that  English-speaking  people, 
though  they  have  many  books,  are  essentially 
people  of  one  Book.  Wherever  they  are,  the 
Bible  is.  Queen  Victoria  has  it  near  by  when  the 
•^/  messenger  from  the  Orient  appears,  and  lays  her 
1^  ^  hand  upon  it  to  say  that  this  is  the  foundation 
of  the  prosperity  of  England.  But  the  poor 
housewife  in  the  cottage,  with  only  a  crust  for 
food,  stays  her  soul  with  it.  The  Puritan  creeps 
into  hiding  with  the  Book,  while  his  brother  sails 
away  to  the  new  land  with  the  Book.  The  set- 
tler  ma^  have,  hi§_Shakespeare;  he  :s5dlL^urely 
have  his  Bible.  As  the  long  wagon-train  creeps 
across  the  plain  to  seek  the  Western  shore,  there 
may  be  no  other  book  in  all  the  train;  but  the 
Bible  will  be  there.  Find  any  settlement  of 
men  who  speak  the  English  tongue,  wherever 
they  make  their  home,  and  the  Bible  is  among 
them.  When  did  any  book  have  such  a  chance 
to  influence  men.?  It  is  the  one  undisturbed 
heritage  of  all  who  speak  the  English  tongue.  It 
binds  the  daughter  and  the  mother  country  to- 
gether, and  gathers  into  the  same  bond  the  scat- 
tered remnants  of  the  English-speaking  race  the 
world  around.  Its  language  is  the  one  speech 
they  all  understand.  Strange  it  would  be  if  it 
had  not  a  profound  influence  upon  history! 

199 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

Another  fact  that  has  helped  to  give  the  Bible 
^  I  its  great  influence  is  the  power  of  the  preaching 
it  has  inspired.     The  periods  of  greatest  preach- 
ing have  always  been  the  periods  of  freest  access 
to  the  Bible.     No  one  can  overlook  the  immense 
power  of  the  sermons  of  history.     There  have 
been   poor,    inept,  banal   expositors,  doubtless; 
but  even  they  turned  men's  minds  to  the  Bible. 
Reading  the  Bible  makes  men  thinkers,  and  so 
makes  preachers  inevitably.     Witness  the  Scotch. 
James  was  raised  in  Scotland   and   believed  in 
the  power  of  preaching.     At  one  time  he  wanted 
to  settle  endowments  for  the  maintenance  of 
preaching  under  government  control.     But  Arch- 
bishop Whitgif t  convinced  him  that  much  preach- 
ing was  "an  innovation  and  dangerous,"  since  it 
is  quite  impossible  to  control  a  man's  mouth 
once  it  is  given  a  public  chance.     Under  Charles 
I.  the  sermon  was  mighty  in  the  service  of  the 
Puritans  until  it  was  suppressed  or  restricted. 
Then  men  became  lecturers  and  expounded  the 
Bible  or  taught  religious  truth  in  public  or  pri- 
vate.    Rich  men  engaged  private  chaplains  since 
public  meetings  could  not  be  held.     Somehow 
they  taught  the  Bible  still.     Archbishop  Laud 
forbade  both.     Yet  the  leaven  worked  the  more 
for  its  restriction.     At  least  one  good   cook  I 
know  says  that  if  you  want  your  dough  to  rise 

200 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

and  the  yeast  to  work,  you  must  cover  it.  Laud 
did  not  want  it  to  rise,  but  he  made  the  mistake 
of  covering  it. 

There  has  never  been  a  book  which  has  pro- 
voked such  incessant  preaching  and  discussion 
as  has  the  Bible.  The  behevers  in  the  Koran 
teach  it  as  it  is,  word  for  word.  Behevers  in  the 
Bible  have  never  stopped  with  that.  They 
have  always  tried  to  come  together  and  hear  it 
expounded.  Such  gatherings  and  such  constant 
pressure  of  the  Book  on  groups  of  hearers  would 
inevitably  give  the  Bible  great  influence.  When 
it  is  remembered  that  in  America  alone  there 
are  each  week  approximately  four  hundred  thou- 
sand gatherings  of  people  which  have  for  their 
avowed  purpose  instruction  or  inspiration  in 
religion,  and  that  the  instruction  and  inspiration 
are  professedly  and  openly  drawn  from  the  Bible, 
y  that  more  than  three  hundred  thousand  sermons 
are  preached  every  week  from  it  and  passages 
of  it  read  in  all  the  gatherings,  it  appears  that  the 
Bible  had  and  still  has  such  a  chance  to  influence 
life  as  no  other  book  has  had.  President  Schur- 
man  traces  a  large  part  of  our  own  stronger 
American  life  to  the  educative  power  of  our 
Sundays.  But  central  in  the  education  of  those 
days  is  now,  and  has  been  from  the  first  of  our 
national  history,  the  English  Bible. 

201 


k 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

The  influence  of  the  Bible  comes  also  from 
the  fact  that  it  makes  its  chief  appeal  to  the 
deeper  elements  in  life.  "Human  history  in  its 
real  character  is  not  an  account  of  kings  and  of 
wars;  it  is  the  unfolding  of  the  moral,  the  polit- 
ical, the  artistic,  the  social,  and  the  spiritual 
progress  of  the  human  family.  The  time  will 
yet  come  when  the  names  of  dynasties  and  of 
battles  shall  not  form  the  titles  of  its  chapters. 
The  truths  revealed  in  the  Bible  have  been  the 
touchstone  which  has  tried  men's  spirits."^ 
f  Those  words  go  to  the  heart  of  the  fact.  The 
}  influence  of  the  English  Bible  on  English- 
speaking  history  for  the  last  three  hundred 
years  is  only  the  influence  of  its  fundamental 
truths.  It  has  moved  with  tremendous  impact 
on  the  wills  of  men.  It  has  made  the  great 
human  ideals  clear  and  definite;  it  has  made 
them  beautiful  and  attractive;  but  that  has  not 
been  enough.  It  has  reached  also  the  springs  of 
action.  It  has  given  men  a  sense  of  need  and 
also  a  sense  of  strength,  a  sense  of  outrage  and  a 
sense  of  power  to  correct  the  wrong.  There  it 
has  differed  from  most  books.  Frederick  Rob- 
ertson said  that  he  read  only  books  with  iron  in 
them,  and,  as  he  read,  their  atoms  of  iron  en- 
tered the  blood,  and  it  ran  more  red  for  them. 

^  H.  B.  Smith,  Faith  and  Philosophy,  p.  54. 
202 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

jy  There  is  iron  in  this  Book,  and  it  has  entered 
the  blood  of  the  human  race.  Where  it  has 
entered  most  freely,  the  red  has  deepened;  and 
nowhere  has  it  deepened  more  than  in  our 
English-speaking  races.  The  iron  of  our  blood 
is  from  this  King  James  version. 
.  Bismarck  explained  the  victories  of  the  Ger- 
mans over  the  French  by  the  fact  that  from 
cTiildhood  the  Germans  had  been  trained  in  the 
sense  of  duty,  as  the  French  had  not  been  trained, 
and  as  soldiers  had  learned  to  feel  that  nothing 
could  escape  the  Eye  which  ever  watched  their 
course.  They  learned  that,  Bismarck  said,  from 
the  religion  which  they  had  been  taught.  There 
is  no  mistaking  the  power  of  religion  in  rousing 
.  and  sharpening  the  sense  of  duty.  Webster 
spoke  for  the  English-speaking  races,  and  found 
his  phrases  in  the  Bible,  when  he  said  that  this 
sense  "pursues  us  ever.  It  is  omnipresent  like 
the  Deity.  If  we  take  to  ourselves  the  wings 
of  the  morning  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts 
of  the  sea,  duty  performed  or  duty  violated  is 
still  with  us  for  our  happiness  or  our  misery. 

w  If  we  say  the  darkness  shall  cover  us,  in  the 
darkness  as  in  the  light  our  obligations  are  yet 
with  us.  We  cannot  escape  from  their  power  or 
fly  from  their  presence."  It  is  religion  which 
makes  that  sense  of  duty  keen;  and,  whatever 

203 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

religion  has  done  among  English-speaking  races, 
the  English  Bible  has  done,  for  it  has  been  the 
text-book  and  the  final  authority  of  those  races 
in  the  moving  things  of  their  faith. 

It  would  be  easiest  in  making  the  argument 
to  single  out  here  and  there  the  striking  events 
in  which  the  Bible  has  figured  and  let  them  stand 
for  the  whole.  There  are  many  such  events, 
and  they  are  attractive. 

/  We  can  imagine  ourselves  standing  on  the  shore 
^  / ;  at  Dover  in  1660,  fifty  years  after  the  version 
was  issued,  waiting  with  the  crowd  to  see  the 
banished  King  return.  The  civil  war  is  over, 
the  protectorate  under  Cromwell  is  past.  Charles 
II.,  thick-lipped,  sensuous,  "seeming  to  belong 
rather  to  southern  Europe  than  to  Puritan  Eng- 
land," is  about  to  land  from  France,  whence  the 
people,  wearied  with  Puritan  excesses,  have  called 
him  back.  There  is  a  great  crowd,  but  they  do 
not  cheer  wildly.  There  is  something  serious 
on  hand.  They  mean  to  welcome  the  King;  but 
it  is  on  condition.  Their  first  act  is  when  the 
Mayor  of  Dover  places  in  his  hands  a  copy  of 
the  English  Bible,  which  the  King  declares  he 
loves  above  all  things  in  the  world.  It 'proves 
only  a  sorry  jest;  but  the  English  people  think 
it  is  meant  for  truth,  and  they  go  to  their  homes 
rejoicing.     They  rejoiced  too  soon,  for  this  is 

204 


\ 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

that  utterly  faithless  king  for  whom  his  witty 
courtier  proposed  an  epitaph: 

"Here  lies  our  sovereign  lord,  the  king, 
Whose  word  no  man  relies  on; 
Who  never  said  a  foolish  thing. 
And  never  did  a  wise  one."  ^ 

I  As  at  other  times,  the  King  was  only  talking 
V    with  no  meaning;   but  the  people  did  not  know 
:    him  yet.     They  had  made  their  Bible  the  great 
.     test  of  their  liberties:   will  a  king  stand  by  that 
or  will  he  not?     If  he  will  not,  let  him  remember 
Charles  the  First!     And  from  that  day  no  Eng- 
lish king,  no  American  leader,  has  ever  success- 
fully restricted   English-speaking  people   from 
free  access  to  their  great  Book.     It  has  become 
a  banner  of  their  liberties.     The  child  was  wiser 
than  he  knew  when  he  was  asked  what  lesson 
we  may  learn  from  Charles  I.,  and  replied  that 
we  may  learn  that  a  man  should  not  lose  his 
head  in  times  of  excitement.     Charles  lost  his 
head  long  before  he  laid  it  on  the  block. 

Besides  the  scene  at  Dover,  we  may  watch 
that  great  emigration  of  the  Scotch-Irish  from 
Ulster,  beginning  in  1689,  seventy  years  after 
the  Puritan  exodus  and  eighty  years   after  the 

^  White,  in  his  History  of  England,  says  that  Charles  replied  that 
the  explanation  was  easy :  His  discourses  were  his  own,  his  actions 
were  his  ministry's! 

205 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

version  was  issued,  which  peopled,  the  backwoods 
of  America  with  a  choice,  strong  population. 
They  were  only  following  the  right  to  worship 
freely,  the  right  to  their  Bible  without  chains 
on  its  lids  or  on  the  lips  of  its  preachers.  They 
were  making  no  protest  against  Romanism  nor 
against  Anglicanism  in  themselves.  They  only 
claimed  the  right  to  worship  as  they  would. 
Under  William  and  Mary,  after  James  11.  had 
fled  to  France,  toleration  became  the  law  in 
England;  but  when  Ireland  was  reconquered 
by  William's  generals,  the  act  of  toleration  was 
not  extended  to  it.  Baptists,  Presbyterians,  all 
except  the  small  Anglican  Church,  were  put 
under  the  ban  and  forbidden  to  worship.  But 
the  Bible  had  made  submission  impossible,  and 
there  came  about  that  great  exodus  to  the  new 
land  which  has  so  blessed  it. 

There  are  other  signal  events  which  might  be 
observed.  But  all  the  while  there  would  be 
danger  of  magnifying  the  importance  of  events 
which  seem  to  prove  the  point.  The  view  needs 
to  be  a  more  general  one  instead.  The  period 
is  not  long — three  hundred  years  at  the  most — 
though  it  has  a  background  of  all  English  his- 
tory. We  have  already  seen  how  from  the  first 
there  have  been  determined  efforts  to  make  the 
Bible  common  to  the  people;  yet,  of  course,  the 

206 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

influence  of  our  version  can  appear  only  in  these 
three  hundred  years  since  it  was  issued.  That 
short  period  has  not  only  been  interesting  almost 
to  the  point  of  excitement  in  English  life,  but 
it  covers  virtually  all  American  life.  Take, 
therefore,  the  broader  view  of  the  influence  of 
the  English  Bible  on  history,  apart  from  these 
j  striking  events. 
\/j  It  is  to  be  assumed  at  once  that  much  of  its 
'  influence  is  indirect.  Indeed,  its  chief  influence 
must  be  through  men  who  prove  to  be  leaders 
and  through  that  public  sentiment  without  which 
leaders  are  powerless.  If  leaders  live  by  it  and 
stand  or  fall  by  its  teaching,  then  their  work  is 
its  work.  If  they  find  a  public  sentiment  issuing 
from  it  which  gives  them  power,  a  sentiment 
which  crystallizes  around  them  when  they  appear, 
because  it  is  of  kindred  spirit  with  themselves, 
then  the  power  of  that  sentiment  is  the  power 
of  the  Bible.  The  influence  of  PilgrirrCs  Progress 
or  The  Sainfs  Rest  is  the  influence  of  Bunyan 
and  Baxter;  but  back  of  them  is  the  Bible.  In 
language,  in  idea,  in  spirit,  they  were  only  mak- 
ing the  Bible  a  common  Book  to  their  readers. 
Their  value  for  life  and  history  is  the  Bible's 
value  for  life  and  history. 

The  power  of  great  souls  is  frequently  and 
easily    underestimated.     Scientific    study    has 

207 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

tended  to  that  by  magnifying  visible  condi- 
tions and  by  trying  to  calculate  the  force  of 
laws  which  are  in  plain  sight.  Buckle's  theory 
of  civilization  has  influenced  our  times  greatly. 
It  explains  national  character  as  the  outcome  of 
natural  conditions,  and  lays  such  stress  on  cir- 
cumstances as  left  it  possible  for  Buckle  to  de- 
clare that  history  and  biography  are  in  different 
spheres.  It  is  still  true,  however,  that  most 
history  turns  on  biography.  Great  souls  have 
been  the  chief  factors  in  great  movements. 
Whether  the  movement  could  have  occurred 
without  them  will  never  be  possible  to  decide, 
if  it  should  be  disputed.  In  a  chemical  labora- 
tory the  essential  factors  of  any  phenomenon 
can  be  determined  by  the  process  of  elimination. 
All  the  elements  which  preceded  it  except  one 
can  be  introduced;  if  the  result  is  the  same  as 
in  it3  presence,  manifestly  it  is  not  essential. 
So  the  experiment  can  go  on  until  the  result  be- 
comes different,  when  it  is  evident  that  the  last 
omitted  element  is  an  essential  one.  But  no 
such  process  is  possible  in  great  historical  move- 
ments. The  only  course  open  to  us  is  to  con- 
sider carefully  the  elements  which  do  appear. 

Take  three  great  movements  which  are  easiest 
to  follow  in  these  three  centuries.  Whether  the 
spiritual  independence  of  England  would  have 

2C3 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

been  secured  without  the  Quakers  may  be  de- 
bated; but  this  fact  can  hardly  be  debated: 
certainly  it  was  not  so  secured;  whether  or  not 
the  Quakers  could  have  been  without  George 
Fox,  certainly  they  did  not  occur  without  him. 
Take  the  second:  whether  or  not  some  other 
movement  could  have  done  what  Puritanism 
did  is  hardly  a  question  for  history;  Puritanism 
actually  did  the  work  for  England  and  America 
which  gave  both  their  strongest  qualities.  There 
is  no  testing  the  period  to  see  whether  Puritan- 
ism could  be  left  out.  There  it  stands  as  a 
powerful  factor,  and  no  analysis  of  the  history 
can  possibly  omit  it.  Or  the  third:  it  is  not  a 
question  for  a  historian  whether  English  history 
could  have  been  the  same  without  Methodism 
and  whether  Methodism  could  have  been  at  all 
without  the  Wesleys;  certainly  nothing  took  its 
place,  nor  did  any  one  else  stand  at  the  head  of 
the  movement. 

Here  are  these  three  great  movements,  not 
to  seek  others.  All  of  them  have  had  tremen- 
dous influence  in  the  religious  and  political  his- 
tory of  both  the  nations  where  they  have  moved 
most  freely.  Each  of  them  is  a  direct  and  un- 
disputed result  of  the  influence  of  the  Bible. 
Much  has  already  been  said  of  the  Puritans  in 
England,  and  there  will  be  occasion  to  see  what 

14  209 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

was  their  influence  in  America.  But  think  for 
a  moment  of  the  Quakers.  James  Freeman 
Clark  calls  them  the  English  mystics;  certainly 
they  were  more  than  that.^  George  Fox  had 
little  learning  but  the  Bible;  that  he  knew  well. 
He  first  came  to  himself  out  in  the  fields  alone 
with  the  Bible.  He  was  not  stirred  to  the  origin 
of  the  movement  nor  to  his  greatest  activity  by 
experiences  he  had  in  public  places.  He  came 
to  those  public  places  profoundly  affected  by  his 
familiarity  with  the  English  Bible.  He  came  at 
a  time  when  his  protest  was  needed,  a  protest 
against  formalism,  against  mere  outward  con- 
formity. A  thousand  years  before,  Mohamme- 
danism had  really  saved  the  Christian  faith  by 
its  protest,  violent  and  merciless,  against  its 
errors,  challenging  it  to  purity  in  faith  and  life. 
Now  Fox  and  the  Quakers  saved  church  life  by 
protest  against  church  life.  The  Bible  was  still 
the  law,  but  not  the  Bible  which  you  read  for 
me,  but  that  which  you  read  for  you  and  I  for 
me,  each  of  us  guided  by  an  inner  light.  The 
Quaker  movement  was  a  distinct  protest  against 
church  formalism  in  the  interests  of  freedom  of 
the  Bible. 

That  Quaker   influence   was   far   stronger   in 
America  than  it  ever  proved  to  be  in  England. 

*  David  Gregg,  The  Quakers  in  America. 
210 


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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

George  Fox  himself  visited  the  colonies  and  ex- 
tended its  influence.  Three  great  effects  are 
easily  traceable.  The  very  presence  of  the 
Quakers  in  the  New  England  colonies,  notably 
in  Massachusetts,  and  the  persecutions  which 
they  endured,  did  more  to  purify  the  Puritans 
than  any  other  one  influence.  One  is  only  loyal 
to  the  Puritan  character  and  teaching  in  declar- 
ing that  in  the  manner  of  the  Puritans  toward 
the  Quakers  they  were  wrong;  they  were  wrong 
because  they  were  untrue  to  their  own  belief, 
untrue  to  their  own  Bibles,  and  when  the  more 
thoughtful  among  them  found  that  they  were 
taking  the  attitude  toward  the  Quakers  which 
they  had  resented  toward  themselves,  remem- 
bering that  the  Quakers  were  drawing  their 
teaching  from  the  same  Bible  as  themselves, 
they  were  naturally  checked.  And,  while  the 
Quakers  in  New  England  suffered  greatly,  their 
suffering  proved  the  purification  of  the  Puritans. 
It  accented  and  so  it  removed  the  narrowness  of 
Puritan  practice.  Further,  the  Quaker  move- 
ment gave  to  American  history  William  Penn 
and  the  whole  constitution  of  Pennsylvania.  It 
was  there  that  a  state  first  lived  by  the  principle 
which  William  Penn  pronounced:  "Any  govern- 
ment is  free  where  the  people  are  a  party  to  the 
laws  enacted."     So  it   came  about  that  Inde- 

211 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

pendence  Hall  is  on  Quaker  soil.  The  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  appeared  there,  and  not 
on  Puritan  soil.  It  may  be  there  was  more 
freedom  of  thought  in  Pennsylvania.  It  may 
be  explained  on  purely  geographical  ground, 
Philadelphia  being  the  most  convenient  center 
for  the  colonies.  But  it  remains  significant 
that  not  on  Cavalier  soil  in  Virginia,  not  on 
Dutch  soil  in  New  York,  not  on  Puritan  soil  in 
Boston,  but  on  Quaker  soil  in  Philadelphia  the 
[^  movement  for  national  independence  crystal- 
lized around  a  general  principle  that  "any 
government  is  free  where  the  people  are  a  party 
to  the  laws  enacted,"  but  that  no  government  is 
free  whose  people  have  not  a  voice.  That  is  not 
minimizing  the  power  of  Puritanism,  nor  for- 
getting Fanueil  Hall  and  the  Tea  Party.  It  only 
accents  what  should  be  familiar:  that  Puritan- 
ism drew  into  itself  more  of  the  fighting  element 
of  Scripture,  while  the  Quaker  movement  drew 
into  itself  more  of  the  uniting,  pacifying  element 
of  Scripture.  The  third  effect  of  the  Quaker 
movement  is  John  Greenleaf  Whittier,  with  his 
gentle  but  never  weak  demand  that  national 
freedom  should  not  mean  independence  of  other 
people  alone,  but  the  independence  of  all  people 
within  the  nation.  So  that  while  the  Quaker 
spirit  helped  the  colonies  to  break  loose  from 

212 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

foreign  control  and  become  a  nation,  it  helped 
the  nation  in  turn  to  break  loose  from  internal 
shackles.  The  nation  stood  free  within  itself 
as  well  as  free  from  others.  Yet  the  Quaker 
movement — and  this  is  the  argument — is  itself 
the  result  of  the  English  Bible,  and  the  Quaker 
influence  is  the  influence  of  the  English  Bible 
on  history. 

There  is  not  need  for  extended  word  about  the 
V  great  Wesleyan  movement  in  the  midst  of  this 
period,  which  has  so  profoundly  affected  both 
English  and  American  history.  It  has  not 
worked  out  into  such  visible  political  forms. 
But  any  movement  that  makes  for  larger  spirit- 
ual life  makes  for  the  strengthening  of  the  entire 
life  of  the  nation.  The  mere  figures  of  the  early 
Wesleyan  movement  are  almost  appalling.  Here 
was  a  man,  John  Wesley,  an  Oxford  scholar, 
who  spent  nearly  fifty  years  traveling  up  and 
down  and  back  and  forth  through  England  on 
horseback,  covering  more  than  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  miles,  preaching  everywhere  more 
than  forty  thousand  times,  writing,  translating, 
editing  two  hundred  works.  When  death  ended 
his  busy  life  there  were  in  his  newly  formed 
brotherhood  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  thou- 
sand members,  with  five  hundred  and  fifty 
itinerants  who  were  following  his  example  with 

213 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

incessant  preaching  and  Bible  exposition.  It 
was  the  old  Wiclif -Lollard  movement  over  again. 
And  here  was  the  other  Wesley,  Charles,  teach- 
ing England  to  sing  again,  teaching  the  old 
truths  of  the  Bible  in  rhyme  to  many  who  could 
not  read,  so  that  they  became  familiar,  writing 
on  horseback,  in  stage-coaches,  everywhere, 
writing  with  one  passion,  to  help  England  back 
to  the  Bible  and  its  truth.  Such  activity  could 
not  leave  the  nation  unmoved;  all  its  religious 
life  felt  it,  and  its  political  life  from  serf  to  king 
was  deeply  affected  by  it.  It  is  a  common  say- 
ing that  the  Wesleyan  movement  saved  English 
liberty  from  European  entanglement.  Yet  the 
Wesleyan  movement  issued  from  the  Bible  and 
led  England  back  to  the  Bible. 

But  apart  from  these  wide  movements  and 
the  great  souls  who  led  them,  there  is  time  for 
thought  of  one  typical  character  on  each  side 
of  the  sea  who  did  not  so  much  make  a  move- 
ment as  he  proved  the  point  around  which  a 
great  fluid  idea  crystallized  into  strength.  Across 
the  sea  the  character  shall  be  that  man  whom 
Carlyle  gave  back  to  us  out  of  obloquy  and  mis- 
understanding, Oliver  Cromwell.  Choosing  him, 
we  pass  other  names  which  crowd  into  memory, 
names  of  men  who  have  served  the  need  of  Eng- 
land well — Wilberforce,  John  Howard,  Shaftes- 

214 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

bury,  Gladstone — who  drew  their  strength  from 
this  Book.  Yet  we  choose  Cromwell  now  for 
argument.  On  this  side  it  must  be  that  best 
known,  most  beloved,  most  typical  of  all  Ameri- 
cans, Abraham  Lincoln. 
A  An  English  historian  has  said  that  the  most 
influential,  the  most  unescapable  years  in  Eng- 
lish history  are  those  of  the  Protectorate.  That 
is  a  strong  saying.  They  were  brief  years. 
There  were  many  factors  in  them.  Oliver  Crom- 
well was  only  one,  but  he  was  chief  of  all.  He 
was  not  chief  in  the  councils  which  resulted  in 
the  beheading  of  Charles  I.  on  that  30th  of 
January,  1649,  though  he  took  part  in  them. 
Increasingly  in  the  movements  which  led  to 
that  event  and  which  followed  it  he  was  grow- 
ing into  prominence.  After  Marston  Moor, 
Prince  Rupert  named  him  Ironsides,  and  his 
regiment  of  picked  men,  picked  for  their  spirit, 
\  went  always  into  battle  singing  psalms,  "and 
were  never  beaten."  As  he  rode  out  to  the  field 
at  Naseby  (1645)  he  knew  he  faced  the  flower 
of  the  loyalist  army,  while  with  him  were  only 
untrained  men;  yet  he  smiled,  as  he  said  after- 
ward, in  the  "assurance  that  God  would,  by 
V  things  that  are  not,  bring  to  naught  things  that 
are."  Then  he  adds,  "God  did  it."  Never 
did  he  raise  his  flag  but  in  the  interests  of  the 

215 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

liberty  of  the  people,  and  back  of  every  move- 
ment of  his  army  there  was  his  confidence  in  the 
Bible,  which  was  his  mainstay.  They  offered 
him  the  throne;  he  would  not  have  it.  He  dis- 
solved the  Parliament  which  had  dragged  on 
until  the  patience  of  the  people  was  exhausted. 
He  called  another  to  serve  their  need.  The 
evening  before  it  met  he  spent  in  meditation  on 
the  One  hundred  and  third  Psalm.  The  evening 
before  the  second  Parliament  of  his  Protecto- 
rate he  brooded  on  the  Eighty-fifth  Psalm,  and 
opened  the  Parliament  next  day  with  an  exposi- 
tion of  it.  The  man  was  saturated  with  Scrip- 
ture. Yes,  the  times  were  rude.  It  was  an  Old 
Testament  age,  and  in  right  Old  Testament 
spirit  did  Cromwell  work.  And  it  seemed  that 
his  work  failed.  There  was  no  one  to  succeed 
him,  and  soon  after  his  death  came  the  Restora- 
tion and  the  return  of  Charles  II.,  of  which  we 
have  already  spoken,  in  which  occurred  that 
hint  of  the  real  sentiment  of  the  English  peo- 
ple which  a  wise  man  had  better  have  taken. 
Yet,  recall  what  actually  happened.  Misunder- 
standing the  spirit  of  the  English  people,  which 
Cromwell  had  helped  to  form,  but  which  in 
turn  had  made  Cromwell  possible,  the  servile 
courtiers  of  the  false  king  unearthed  the  Pro- 
tector's body,  three  years  buried,  hanged  it  on 

216 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

a  gallows  in  Tyburn  for  a  day,  beheaded  it,  and 
threw  the  trunk  into  a  pit.  His  head  they 
mockingly  set  on  a  pinnacle  of  the  Parliament 
Hall,  whence  for  some  weeks  it  looked  over  the 
city  which  he  had  served.  Then,  during  a 
great  storm,  it  came  clattering  down,  only  a  poor 
dried  skull,  and  disappeared  no  one  knows  where. 
But  when  you  stand  opposite  the  great  Parlia- 
ment buildings  in  London  to-day,  the  most 
beautiful  buildings  for  their  purpose  in  the  world, 
the  buildings  where  the  liberties  of  the  English 
express  themselves  year  after  year,  whose  is  the 
one  statue  that  finds  place  within  the  inclosure, 
near  the  spot  where  that  poor  skull  came  rat- 
tling down.f^  Not  Charles  II. — you  shall  look  in 
vain  for  him.  Not  George  Monk,  who  brought 
back  the  King — you  shall  not  find  him  there. 
The  one  statue  which  England  has  cared  to  plant 
beside  its  Parliament  buildings  is  that  of  Oliver 
Cromwell,  its  Lord  Protector.  There  he  stands, 
warning  kings  in  the  interests  of  liberty.  John 
Morley  makes  no  ideal  of  him.  He  thinks  he 
rather  closed  the  medieval  period  than  opened 
the  modern  period;  but  he  will  not  have  Crom- 
\J  well  compared  to  Frederick  the  Great,  who 
spoke  with  a  sneer  of  mankind.  Cromwell  "be- 
longed to  the  rarer  and  nobler  type  of  governing 
men,  who  see  the  golden  side,  who  count  faith, 

217 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

piety,  hope  among  the  counsels  of  practical 
wisdom,  and  who  for  political  power  must  ever 
seek  a  moral  base."  That  is  a  rare  and  noble 
type  of  men,  whether  they  govern  or  not.  But 
no  man  of  that  type  governs  without  red  blood 
in  his  veins;  and  the  iron  that  made  this  man's 
blood  run  red  came  from  the  English  Bible. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  Oliver  Cromwell  to  Abra- 
ham Lincoln — far  in  years,  far  in  deeds,  far  in 
methods,  but  not  far  in  spirit.  Great  men  are 
kindred,  generations  over.  We  pass  from  the 
Old  Testament  into  the  New  when  we  pass  from 
Cromwell  to  Lincoln;  but  we  still  feel  the  spirit 
of  liberty.  From  the  days  of  the  Puritans,  the 
Quakers  and  the  Dutch,  history  had  been  pre- 
paring for  this  time.  Benjamin  Franklin  had 
done  his  great  work  for  human  liberty;  he  had 
summed  up  his  hope  for  the  nation  in  his  mem- 
orable address  in  1787,  when  he  stood  eighty- 
one  years  old,  before  the  convention  assembled  to 
frame  a  constitution  for  the  new  government.  He 
reminded  them  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  con- 
test with  the  British  they  had  had  daily  prayers 
in  that  room  in  Philadelphia  for  the  Divine  pro- 
tection, and  said:  "I  have  lived  for  a  long  time, 
and  the  longer  I  live  the  more  convincing  proof 
I  see  of  this  truth,  that  God  governs  in  the 
affairs  of  men.     And  if  a  sparrow  cannot  fall 

218 


v^ 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

to  the  ground  without  His  notice,  is  it  probable 
that  an  empire  can  rise  without  His  aid?  We 
have  been  assured,  Sir,  in  the  sacred  writings, 
that '  Except  the  Lord  build  the  house,  they  labor 
in  vain  that  build  it.'  I  firmly  believe  this,  and 
I  also  believe  that  without  His  concurring  aid 
we  shall  proceed  in  this  political  building  no 
better  than  the  builders  of  Babel.  I  therefore 
beg  leave  to  move  that,  henceforth,  prayers  im- 
ploring the  assistance  of  Heaven  and  its  blessing 
on  our  deliberation  be  held  in  this  assembly 
every  morning  before  we  proceed  to  business, 
and  that  one  or  more  of  the  clergy  of  this  city 
be  requested  to  officiate  in  that  service." 

George  Washington  sounded  a  familiar  note 
in  his  farewell  address:  "Of  all  the  dispositions 
and  habits  which  lead  to  political  prosperity, 
religion  and  morality  are  indispensable  supports. 
A  volume  could  not  trace  all  their  connection 
with  private  and  public  felicity.  Let  us  with 
caution  indulge  the  supposition  that  morality 
can  be  maintained  without  religion.  Whatever 
may  be  conceded  to  the  influence  of  refined  edu- 
cation on  minds  of  peculiar  structure,  reason  and 
experience  both  forbid  us  to  expect  that  national 
morality  can  prevail  in  exclusion  of  religious 
principles."  Thomas  Jefferson,  of  whom  it  is 
sometimes  said  that  he  was  indifferent  to  re- 

219 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

ligion,  had  yet  done  his  great  work  under  in- 
spiration, which  he  himself  acknowledges  in  his 
inaugural  address,  when  he  speaks  of  the  nation 
as  *' enlightened  by  a  benign  religion,  professed 
indeed,  and  practised  in  various  forms,  yet  all 
of  them  inculcating  honesty,  truth,  temperance, 
gratitude,  and  the  love  of  man;  acknowledging 
and  adoring  an  overruling  Providence,  which 
by  all  its  dispensation  proves  that  it  results  in 
the  happiness  of  man  here  and  his  greater  happi- 
ness hereafter."  Greater  than  Jefferson  had 
appeared  John  Marshall,  greatest  of  our  Chief 
Justices,  like  in  spirit  to  that  John  Marshall 
Harlan,  whose  death  marked  the  year  which 
has  just  closed,  of  whom  his  colleagues  said  that 
he  went  to  his  rest  each  night  with  one  hand  on 
the  Bible  and  the  other  on  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  a  description  which  could 
almost  be  transferred  to  his  great  predecessor 
in  that  court.  Moreover,  when  Lincoln  came, 
Joseph  Story,  the  greatest  teacher  of  law  which 
our  country  had  produced,  had  only  just  died 
from  his  place  on  the  Supreme  Bench.  In  his 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  address  at  Harvard  (1826),  in 
a  brilliant  and  masterful  analysis  of  "  The  Char- 
acteristics of  the  Age,"  he  had  paid  tribute  after 
tribute  to  the  power  of  religion  and  the  Bible. 
He  had  declared  his  belief  that  the  religion  of 

220 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

the  Bible  had  "estabhshed  itself  in  the  hearts 
.  of  men  by  all  which  genius  could  bring  to  illumine 
or  eloquence  to  grace  its  sublime  truths."     Of 
y  the  same  period  with  Lincoln  was  also  Webster, 
who  was  called  the  "concordance  of  the  House." 
'    Many  of  his  stately  periods  and  great  ideas  came 
from  the  Bible.     Indeed,  there  is  no  oratory  of 
our  history,  which  has  survived  the  waste  of  the 
years,  which  does  not  feel  and  show  the  power 
of  the  Scriptures.     The  English  Bible  has  given 
our  finest  eloquence  its  ideas,  its  ideals,  its  illus- 
trations, its  phrases. 

The  line  is  unbroken.  And  it  leads  to  this  tall 
figure,  crowned  with  a  noble  head,  his  face  the 
saddest  in  American  history,  who  knew  Gethse- 
mane  in  all  its  paths.  The  heart  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  has  always  been  touched  by  his  early 
years  of  abject  poverty.  But  there  were  compen- 
sations. He  had  few  books,  and  they  entered 
his  blood  and  fiber.  In  his  earliest  formative 
years  there  were  six  books  which  he  read  and 
re-read.  Nicolay  and  Hay  name  the  Bible  first 
in  the  list,  with  Pilgrim's  Progress  as  the  fourth. 
Mr.  Morse  calls  it  a  small  library,  but  nourish- 
ing, and  says  that  Lincoln  absorbed  into  his  own 
nature  all  the  strong  juice  of  the  books.  ^  How 
much  he  drew  from  the  pages  of  the  Holy  Book 

*  American  Statesman  Series,  Abraham  Lincoln,  i,  12,  13. 
221 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

let  any  reader  of  his  speeches  say.  Quotation, 
reference,  illustration  crowd  each  other.  The 
phrases  are  familiar.  The  man  is  full  of  the 
Book.  And  what  the  man  does  is  part  of  the 
work  of  the  Book. 

One  of  his  biographers  says  that  there  is 
nothing  in  the  life  or  work  of  Lincoln  which  can- 
not be  explained  without  reference  to  any  super- 
natural influence  or  power.  That  depends  on 
what  is  meant  by  supernatural.  There  were  no 
miracles,  no  astounding  visions  nor  experiences. 
But  there  ran  into  Lincoln's  life  from  his  young 
manhood  onward  this  steady  and  strong  cur- 
rent of  ideas  and  ideals  from  the  Bible.  In  his 
second  inaugural  address  he  worded  the  thought 
that  was  the  deepest  horror  of  the  Civil  War — 
that  on  both  sides  of  the  strife  men  were  reading 
the  same  Bible,  praying  to  the  same  God,  and  in- 
voking His  aid  against  each  other !  In  that  very 
brief  inaugural  Mr.  Lincoln  quotes  in  full  three 
Bible  verses,  and  makes  reference  to  two  others, 
and  the  whole  address  lasted  barely  four  minutes. 
There  could  be  no  mistaking  the  solemn  im- 
portance of  the  fact  to  which  he  referred  in  the 
inaugural,  the  presence  on  the  other  side  of  men 
who  held  their  Bibles  high  in  regard.  "Stone- 
V  wall"  Jackson  was  devout  beyond  most  men. 
The  two  books  always  at  his  hand  were  his 

222 


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Bible  and  the  Manual  of  the  Rules  of  War. 
Robert  E.  Lee  was  a  cultured,  Christian  gentle- 
man, as  were  many  others  with  him,  while 
throughout  the  South  were  multitudes  who 
loved  and  reverenced  the  Bible  as  fully  as  could 
any  in  the  North.  As  we  look  back  over  half  a 
century,  this  comes  out  plainly:  that  so  far  as 
the  American  civil  war  was  a  strife  about  union 
pure  and  simple,  having  one  nation  or  two  here 
in  our  part  of  the  continent,  it  was  matter  of 
judgment,  not  of  religion.  There  grew  around 
that  question  certain  others  of  national  honor  and 
obligation,  which  were  not  so  clear  then  as  now. 
But  men  on  opposite  sides  of  the  question  might 
read  the  same  Bible  without  finding  authorita- 
tive word  about  it.  In  so  far,  however,  as  the  war 
had  at  its  heart  the  matter  of  human  slavery, 
it  was  possible  for  men  to  differ  only  when  one 
side  read  the  letter  of  the  Bible  while  the  other 
read  its  manifest  spirit.  Written  in  times  when 
slavery  was  counted  matter  of  course,  its  letter 
dealt  with  slavery  as  a  fact.  It  could  be  read  as 
though  it  approved  slavery.  But  long  before 
this  day  men  had  found  its  true  spirit.  England 
had  abolished  slavery  (1808)  under  the  insist- 
ence that  it  was  foreign  to  all  right  understand- 
ing of  God's  Word.  Lincoln  knew  its  letter 
well;  he  eared  for  its  spirit  more,  and  he  found 

923 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

his  strength  not  in  the  famiHar  saying  that  God 
was  on  his  side,  but  in  the  more  forceful  one 
that  he  beheved  himself  to  be  on  God's  side. 
So  he  became  a  point  around  which  the  great 
fluid  idea  crystallized  into  strength — a  point 
made  and  sustained  by  the  influence  of  the  Bible, 
which  he  knew  only  in  the  King  James  version. 

We  have  spoken  of  some  wide  movements  and 
of  men  around  whom  they  crystallized,  finding 
in  them  the  influence  of  the  Bible.  It  will  be 
well  to  note  two  outstanding  traits  of  the  Bible 
which  in  English  or  any  other  tongue  would 
inevitably  tend  to  strong  and  favorable  influence 
on  the  history  of  men.  Those  two  traits  are, 
first,  its  essential  democracy,  and,  secondly,  its 
persistent  moral  appeal. 

Here  must  be  recalled  that  century  before 
the  King  James  version,  when  by  slow  filtration 
the  fundamental  ideas  of  the  Bible  were  enter- 
ing English  life.  Surely  it  is  beyond  words  that 
the  Bible  made  Puritanism,  though  it  was  in 
strong  swing  when  James  came  to  the  throne. 
Now  John  Richard  Green  is  well  within  the  fact 
when  he  says  that  "Puritanism  may  fairly  claim 
to  be  the  first  political  system  which  recognized 
the  grandeur  of  the  people  as  a  whole."  ^     It  was 

*  Short  History  of  the  English  People,  chap,  vii,  sec.  vii. 
224 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

the  magnifying  of  the  people  as  a  whole  over 
against  some  people  as  having  peculiar  rights 
which  marked  Puritanism,  and  which  is  democ- 
racy. Shakespeare  knew  nothing  of  it,  and  had 
no  influence  on  the  movement  for  larger  democ- 
racy. After  we  have  said  our  strong  word  of 
Shakespeare's  powerful  influence  upon  literature 
it  yet  must  be  said  that  it  is  diflacult  to  lay 
finger  on  one  single  historical  movement  except 
the  literary  one  which  Shakespeare  even  remotely 
influenced.  The  Bible,  meanwhile,  was  abso- 
lutely creating  this  movement.  Under  its  in- 
fluence "the  meanest  peasant  felt  himself  en- 
nobled as  the  child  of  God,  the  proudest  noble 
recognized  a  spiritual  equality  with  the  meanest 
saint."  That  was  the  inevitable  result  of  a 
fresh  reading  of  the  Bible  in  every  home.  It  as- 
sured each  man  that  he  is  a  son  of  God,  equal  in 
that  sonship  with  all  other  men.  It  assured 
him  no  man  •  has  right  to  lord  it  over  others, 
as  though  his  relation  to  God  were  peculiar. 
The  Bible  constantly  impresses  men  that  this 
relation  to  God  is  the  essential  one.  Everything 
else  is  incidental.  Granted  now  a  people  freshly 
under  the  influence  of  that  teaching,  you  have 
a  large  explanation  of  the  movement  which  fol- 
lowed the  issuance  of  this  version. 

James  opened  his  first  parliament  (1604)  with 

15  225 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

a  speech  claiming  divine  right,  a  doctrine  which 
had  really  been  raised  to  meet  the  claim  of  the 
right  of  the  pope  to  depose  kings.  James  argued 
that  the  state  of  monarchy  is  the  supremest 
thing  on  earth,  for  kings  are  not  only  God's 
lieutenants  on  earth  and  set  upon  God's  throne, 
but  even  by  God  Himself  are  called  gods.  (He 
never  found  that  in  the  Genevan  version  or  its 
notes!)  As  to  dispute  what  God  may  do  is 
blasphemy,  so  it  is  sedition  in  subjects  to  dis- 
pute what  the  king  may  do  in  the  height  of  his 
power.  "I  will  not  be  content  that  my  power 
be  disputed  on."  The  House  of  Commons  sat  by 
his  grace  and  not  of  any  right. 

Set  that  idea  of  James  over  against  the  idea 
which  the  Bible  was  constantly  developing  in 
the  mind  of  the  people,  and  you  see  why  Trevel- 
yan  says  that  the  Bible  brought  in  democracy, 
and  why  he  thinks,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
that  the  greatest  contribution  England  has  made 
to  government  is  its  treatment  of  the  Stuarts, 
when  it  transferred  sovereignty  from  the  king 
to  Parliament.  Among  the  men  who  listened 
to  that  kind  of  teaching  were  Eliot,  Hampden, 
Pym,  all  Puritans  under  the  spell  of  the  Bible. 
But  the  strife  grew  larger  than  a  merely  Puritan 
one.  The  people  themselves  were  strongly  feel- 
ing their  rights.     "To  the  devout  Englishman, 


\X 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

much  as  he  might  love  his  prayer-book  and  hate 
the  dissenters,  the  core  of  rehgion  was  the  hfe 
of  family  prayer  and  Bible  study,  which  the 
Puritans  had  for  a  hundred  years  struggled  not 
in  vain  to  make  the  custom  of  the  land."  It  was 
this  spirit  which  James  met. 

We  have  already  thought  suflSciently  of  the 
/events  which  actually  followed.  The  final  rup- 
ture of  Charles  I.  with  parliamentary  institutions 
was  due  to  the  religious  situation.  There  were 
many  Bible-reading  families,  learning  their  own 
rights,  while  kings  and  favorites  were  plotting 
war.  Laud  and  the  bishops  forbade  non-con- 
forming gatherings,  but  they  could  not  prevent 
a  man's  gathering  his  household  about  him  while 
he  read  the  great  stories  of  the  Bible,  in  which 
no  king  ruled  when  he  had  ceased  to  advance 
his  kingdom,  in  which  each  man  was  shut  up 
to  God  in  the  most  vital  things  of  his  life.  The 
discussion  of  the  time  grew  keen  about  pre- 
destination and  free-will.  One  meant  that  only 
God  had  power;  the  other  meant  that  men,  and 
if  men,  then  specially  kings,  might  control  other 
men  if  only  they  could.  Not  fully,  but  vaguely, 
the  crowd  understood.  Very  fully,  and  not 
vaguely,  the  leaders  understood.  Predestina- 
tion and  Parliament  became  a  cry.  That  is, 
control  lifted  out  of  the  hands   of  the  free-will 

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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

of  some  monarch  into  the  hands  of  a  sovereign 
God  to  whom  every  man  had  the  same  access 
that  any  other  man  had.  Laud  decreed  that  all 
such  discussion  should  cease.  He  revived  an 
old  decree  that  no  book  could  be  printed  with- 
out consent  of  an  archbishop  or  the  Bishop  of 
London.  So  the  books  became  secret  and  more 
virulent  each  year.  The  civil  war  (1642-46) 
between  Charles  and  Parliament  was  a  war  of 
ideas.  It  is  sometimes  called  a  war  of  religion, 
not  quite  fairly.  It  was  due  to  the  religious 
situation,  but  actually  it  was  for  the  liberties 
of  the  people  against  the  power  of  the  king.  And 
that  question  rooted  far  down  in  another  re- 
garding the  rights  of  men  to  be  free  in  their 
religious  life.  Charles  struck  his  coin  at  Oxford 
with  the  Latin  inscription:  "The  Protestant  re- 
ligion; the  laws  of  England;  the  liberties  of 
Parliament."  But  he  struck  it  too  late.  He 
had  been  trifling  with  the  freedom  of  the  people, 
and  they  had  learned  from  their  fireside  Bibles 
and  from  their  pulpits  that  no  man  may  command 
another  in  his  relation  to  God.  It  was  long 
after  that  Burns  described  "The  Cottar's  Satur- 
day Night ";  but  he  was  only  describing  a  condi- 
tion which  was  already  in  vogue,  and  which  was 
having  tremendous  influence  in  England  as  well 
as  in  Scotland: 

228 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

"The  cheerfu'  supper  done,  wi'  serious  face, 

They,  round  the  ingle,  form  a  circle  wide; 
The  sire  turns  o'er,  wi'  patriarchal  grace, 

The  big  ha'  Bible,  ance  his  father's  pride: 
His  bonnet  rev'rently  is  laid  aside. 

His  lyart  haffets  wearing  thin  an'  bare; 
Those  strains  that  once  did  sweet  in  Zion  glide. 

He  wales  a  portion  with  judicious  care, 
And* Let  us  worship  God!'  he  says,  with  solemn  air." 

Under  such  guidance  as  this  the  people  of 
^  England,  Puritans  and  others,  relaxed  the  power 
of  the  Stuarts  and  became  a  democracy.  For 
democracy  is  not  a  form  of  government.  It  can 
exist  under  monarchy,  provided  the  monarchy 
is  a  convenience  of  the  will  of  the  people,  as  it 
is  in  England.  It  can  exist  under  institutions 
like  our  own,  provided  they  also  are  held  as  a 
convenience  of  the  people.  This  was  no  rebellion 
against  some  form  of  monarchy.  It  was  simply 
a  claim  of  every  man  to  have  his  rights  before 
God.  Under  the  Parliament  of  eighteen  years 
duration,  the  Independents,  Presbyterians,  and 
all  other  non-conforming  bodies  suffered  as 
heavily  as  under  James  and  Charles,  yet  they  did 
not  flee  the  land.  Their  battle  w^as  really  won. 
They  believed  the  time  would  come  when  they 
as  part  of  "the  people"  who  now  governed 
should  assert  themselves.     If  they  were  perse- 

229 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

cuted,  it  was  under  a  government  where  yet 
they  might  hope  for  their  rights.  Fleeing  from 
England  in  1620  was  heroism;  iOieeing  in  1640 
would  have  been  cowardly.  It  is  impossible  to 
calculate  what  was  the  revelation  to  the  readers 
of  the  English  Bible  of  their  rights. 

Let  Trevelyan  tell  the  story:  "While  other 
y  literary  movements,  however  noble  in  quality, 
affect  onl}^  a  few,  the  study  of  the  Bible  was  be- 
coming the  national  education.  Recommended 
by  the  king,  translated  by  the  Bishops,  yet  in 
chief  request  with  the  Puritans,  without  the 
rivalry  of  books  and  newspapers,  the  Bible  told 
to  the  unscholarly  the  story  of  another  age  and 
race,  not  in  bald  generalization  and  doctrinal 
harangue,  but  with  such  wealth  of  simple  narra- 
tive and  lyrical  force  that  each  man  recognized 
his  own  dim  strivings  after  a  new  spirit,  written 
clear  in  words  two  thousand  years  old.  A  deep 
and  splendid  effect  was  wrought  by  the  monopoly 
of  this  Book  as  the  sole  reading  of  common 
households,  in  an  age  when  men's  minds  were 
instinct  with  natural  poetry  and  open  to  receive 
the  light  of  imagination.  A  new  religion  arose, 
of  which  the  mythus  was  the  Bible  stories  and 
the  pervading  spirit  the  direct  relations  of  man 
with  God,  exemplified  in  the  human  life.  And, 
while  imagination  was  kindled,  the  intellect  was 

230 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

freed  by  this  private  study  of  the  Bible.  For  its 
private  study  involved  its  private  interpretation. 
Each  reader,  even  if  a  Churchman,  became  in 
some  sort  a  church  to  himself .  Hence  the  hundred 
sects  and  thousand  doctrines  that  astonished 
foreigners  and  opened  England's  strange  path 
to  intellectual  liberty.  The  Bible  cultivated 
here,  more  than  in  any  other  land,  the  growth 
of  intellectual  thought  and  practice."  ^ 
/  All  that  has  seemed  to  refer  only  to  England, 
Y I  hut  the  same  essential  democracy  of  the  Bible 
/  came  to  America  and  founded  the  new  nation. 
I  It  was  a  handful  of  Puritans  turned  Pilgrims 
'  who  set  out  in  the  Mayflower  to  give  their  Bible 
ideas  free  field.  In  a  dozen  years  (1628-40), 
under  Laud's  persecution,  twenty  thousand  Eng- 
lishmen fled  to  join  those  Pilgrims.  And  how 
much  turned  on  that!  Suppose  it  had  not  hap- 
pened. Then  the  French  of  the  North  and  the 
cavaliers  of  Virginia,  with  the  Spanish  of  the 
South,  would  have  had  only  the  Dutch  between 
them.  And  of  the  four,  only  the  Dutch  had 
free  access  to  the  Bible.  The  new  land  would 
not  have  been  English.  It  is  an  English  writer 
who  says  that  North  America  is  now  preparing 
the  future  of  the  world,  and  English  speech  is 
the  mold  in  which  the  folk  of  all  the  world  are 

^  England  under  the  Stuarts, 
231 


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being  poured  for  their  final  shaping/  It  is  the 
democracy  of  the  Bible  which  is  the  fundamental 
democracy  of  America,  in  which  every  man  has 
it  accented  to  him  that  he  is  so  much  a  child 
of  God  that  his  rights  are  inalienable.  They 
cover  life  and  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness. And  though  we  have  held  that  principle 
of  democracy  inconsistently  at  times,  and  have 
paid  a  terrible  price  for  our  inconsistency  in  the 
past,  and  may  pay  it  in  the  future  again,  it  is 
still  true  that  the  fundamental  democracy  of  our 
American  life  is  only  that  essential  democracy 
of  the  Bible,  w^here  every  man  is  made  the  equal 
of  his  fellow  by  being  lifted  into  the  same  rela- 
tion with  Almighty  God. 

The  Bible  makes  its  moral  appeal  on  the  same 
basis.  If  a  man  is  a  child  of  God,  then  he  is 
shut  up  to  duties  which  cannot  be  avoided. 
Some  one  else  may  tell  a  man  his  duty  in  a  true 
monarchy.  In  a  democracy  each  man  stands 
alone  at  the  most  solemn  point  of  his  duty. 
There  is  no  safe  democracry  where  men  refuse 
to  stand  alone  there.  In  Jefferson's  great  speech, 
replying  to  the  forebodings  of  Patrick  Henry,  he 
insisted  that  if  men  were  not  competent  to  gov- 
ern   themselves   they   were    not    competent    to 

^  Trevelyan,  England  under  the  Stuarts,  p.  174. 
232 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

govern  other  people.  The  first  duty  of  any  man 
is  to  take  his  independent  place  before  God. 
Democracy  is  the  social  privilege  that  grows  out 
of  the  meeting  of  these  personal  obligations. 

Several  facts  strengthen  this  persistent  moral 
appeal.  For  one  thing,  the  Book  is  absolutely 
fair  to  humanity.  It  leaves  out  no  line  or 
wrinkle;  but  it  adds  none.  The  men  with  whom 
it  deals  are  typical  men.  The  facts  it  presents 
are  typical  facts.  There  are  books  which  flatter 
men,  make  them  out  all  good,  prattle  on  about 
the  essential  goodness  of  humanity,  while  men 
who  know  themselves  (and  these  are  the  only 
ones  who  do  things)  know  that  the  story  is  not 
true.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  books  which 
are  depressing.  Their  pigments  are  all  black. 
They  move  from  the  dignity  of  Schopenhauer's 
pessimism  to  the  bedlam  of  Nietzsche's  contempt 
for  life  and  goodness.  But  here,  also,  the  sane 
common  sense  of  humanity  comes  to  the  rescue. 
The  picture  is  not  true  if  it  is  all  white  or  all 
black.  The  Bible  is  absolutely  fair  to  humanity. 
It  moves  within  the  circle  of  man's  experience; 
and,  while  it  deals  with  men,  it  results  in  a  treat- 
ment of  man. 

That  is  how  it  comes  about  that  the  Bible  in- 
spires men,  and  puts  them  at  their  best.  No 
moral  appeal  can  be  successful  if  it  fails  to  reach 

233 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH   CLASSIC 

the  better  part  of  a  man,  and  lays  hold  on  him 
there.  Just  that  it  did  for  the  English  people. 
"No  greater  moral  change  ever  passed  over  a 
nation  than  passed  over  England  during  the 
years  that  parted  the  middle  of  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth  from  the  meeting  of  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment. England  became  the  people  of  a  Book, 
and  that  Book  was  the  Bible."  ^ 

Add  to  that  personal  appeal  and  that  abso- 
lute fairness  to  humanity  the  constant  challenge 
of  the  Bible  to  the  nobler  elements  of  humanity. 
It  never  trifles.  It  is  in  deadly  earnest.  And 
it  makes  earnest  men.  Probably  we  cannot  il- 
lustrate that  earnestness  more  clearly  than  by 
a  study  of  one  element  in  Puritan  history,  which 
is  confused  in  many  minds.  It  is  the  matter 
of  the  three  great  antagonisms  of  Puritanism  in 
England  and  America.  They  can  never  be  under- 
stood by  moral  triflers.  They  may  not  be  ap- 
proved by  all  the  morally  serious,  but  they  will 
be  understood  by  them.  What  are  those  three 
marked  antagonisms?  The  antagonism  to  the 
stage,  to  popular  frivolity,  and  to  the  pleasure 
Sabbath. 

1.  The  early  English  stage  had  the  approval 
of  virtually  all  the  people.  There  were  few 
voices  raised  against  the  dramas  of  Shakespeare. 

^  Green,  Short  History  of  the  English  People. 
234 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

But  the  cleavage  between  the  Puritans  and  the 
stage  grew  greater  as  the  years  went  on.  There 
were  riotous  excesses.  The  later  comedy  after 
Shakespeare  was  incredibly  gross.  The  tragedies 
were  shallow,  they  turned  not  on  grave  scenes 
of  conscience,  but  on  common  and  cheap  in- 
trigues of  incest  and  murder.  In  the  mean  time, 
"the  hatred  of  the  Puritans  for  the  stage  was 
only  the  honest  hatred  of  God-fearing  men 
against  the  foulest  depravity  presented  in  poetic 
and  dramatic  forms."  The  Bible  was  laying 
hold  on  the  imagination  of  the  people,  making 
them  serious,  thoughtful,  preparing  them  for 
the  struggle  for  liberty  which  was  soon  to  come. 
The  plays  of  the  time  seemed  too  trifling  or  else 
too  foul.  The  Puritans  and  the  English  people 
of  the  day  were  willing  to  be  amused,  if  the  stage 
would  amuse  them.  They  were  willing  to  be 
taught,  if  the  stage  would  teach  them.  But 
they  were  not  willing  to  be  amused  by  vice  and 
foulness,  and  they  were  not  willing  to  be  taught 
by  lecherous  actors  who  parroted  beautiful  senti- 
ments of  virtue  on  the  stage  and  lived  filthy 
lives  of  incest  and  shame  off  the  stage.  Life  had 
to  be  whole  to  the  Puritan,  as  indeed  it  has  to 
be  to  other  thoughtful  men.  And  the  Bible 
taught  him  that.  His  concern  was  for  the  higher 
elements  of  life;  his  appeal  was  to  the  worthier 

235 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

values  in  men.  The  concern  of  the  stage  of  his 
day  was  for  the  more  volatile  elements  in  men. 
The  test  of  a  successful  play  was  whether  the 
crowds,  any  crowds,  came  to  it.  And  as  always 
happens  when  a  man  wants  to  catch  the  interest 
of  a  crowd,  the  stage  catered  to  its  lowest  inter- 
ests. You  can  hardly  read  the  story  of  the 
times  without  feeling  that  the  Puritan  made 
no  mistake  in  his  day.  He  could  not  have  been 
the  thoughtful  man  who  would  stand  strong  in 
the  struggle  for  liberty  on  that  side  of  the  sea 
and  the  struggle  for  life  on  this  side  of  the  sea 
without  opposing  trifling  and  vice. 

2.  The  antagonism  of  the  early  Puritan  to 
popular  frivolity  needs  to.  have  the  times  around 
it  to  be  understood.  No  great  movement  carries 
everybody  with  it,  and  while  it  is  still  struggling 
the  majority  will  be  on  the  opposing  side.  While 
the  real  leadership  of  England  was  passing  into 
the  stronger  and  more  serious  hands  the  arti- 
ficial excesses  of  life  grew  strong  on  the  people. 
"Fortunes  were  being  sunk  and  estates  mort- 
gaged in  order  that  men  should  w«ar  jewels  and 
dress  in  colored  silks."  ^  In  the  pressure  of 
grave  national  needs  men  persisted  in  frivolity. 
The  two  reigning  vices  were  drunkenness  and 
swearing.     In   their   cups   men   were   guilty   of 

^  Trevelyan,  England  under  the  Stuarts,  p.  66. 
236 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

the  grossest  indecencies.  Even  their  otherwise 
harmless  sports  were  endangered.  The  popular 
notion  of  the  May-pole  dances  misses  the  real 
point  of  the  Puritan  opposition  to  it  in  Old  and 
New  England.  It  was  not  an  innocent,  jovial 
out-door  event.  Once  it  may  have  been  that. 
Very  often  it  was  only  part  of  a  day  which 
brought  immorality  and  vice  in  its  train.  It  was 
part  of  a  rural  paganism.  Some  of  the  customs 
involved  such  grave  perils,  with  their  seclusion 
of  young  people  from  early  dawn  in  the  forests, 
as  to  make  it  impossible  to  approve  it.  Over 
against  all  these  things  the  Puritans  set  them- 
selves. Sometimes  they  carried  this  solemnity 
to  an  absurd  length,  justifying  it  by  Scripture 
verses  misapplied.  Against  the  affected  ele- 
gancies of  speech  they  set  the  plain  yea,  yea 
and  nay,  nay  of  Scripture.  In  their  clothing, 
their  homes,  their  churches,  they,  and  in  even 
more  marked  degree,  the  Quakers,  registered 
their  solemn  protest  against  the  frivolity  of  the 
times.  If  they  went  too  far,  it  is  certain  their 
protest  was  needed.  Macaulay's  epigram  is 
familiar,  that  the  Puritan  "hated  bear-baiting, 
not  because  it  gave  pain  to  the  bear,  but  because 
it  gave  pleasure  to  the  spectators."  In  so  far 
as  that  is  true,  it  is  to  the  credit  of  the  Puritan; 
for  the  bear  can  stand  the  pain  of  being  baited 

237 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

far  better  than  human  nature  can  stand  the 
coarsenmg  effects  of  baiting  him,  and  it  is  nobler 
to  oppose  such  sport  on  human  grounds  than  on 
animal  grounds.  But,  of  course,  the  epigram  is 
Macaulay's,  and  must  be  read  with  qualification. 
The  fact  is,  and  he  says  it  often  enough  without 
epigrams,  that  the  times  had  become  trifling 
except  as  this  grave,  thoughtful  group  influenced 
,  them. 

/|  3.  The  attitude  of  the  Puritans  toward  the 
^Sabbath  came  from  their  serious  thought  of  the 
Bible.  Puritanism  gave  England  the  Sabbath 
again  and  planted  it  in  America  as  an  institution. 
Of  course,  these  men  learned  all  that  they  knew 
of  it  from  the  Bible.  From  that  day,  in  spite 
of  much  change  in  thought  of  it,  English- 
speaking  people  have  never  been  wilful  abusers 
of  the  Sabbath.  But  the  condition  in  that  day 
was  very  different.  Most  of  the  games  were  on 
the  day  set  apart  as  the  Sabbath.  There  were 
bull-baiting,  bear-baiting,  and  football  on  Sun- 
day. Calvin  himself,  though  not  in  England, 
I  bowled  on  Sunday,  and  poor  Knox  attended 
festivities  then,  saying  grimly  that  what  little 
is  right  on  week-days  is  not  wrong  on  Sundays. 
After  the  service  on  Sunday  morning  the  people 
thronged  to  the  village  green,  where  ale  flowed 
freely  and  games  were  played  until  the  evening 

238 


1/ 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

dance  was  called.  It  was  a  work-day.  Eliza- 
beth issued  a  special  injunction  that  people  work 
after  service  on  Sundays  and  holidays  if  they 
wished  to  do  so.  Employers  were  sustained  in 
their  demand  for  Sunday  work. 

There  are  always  people  in  every  time  who 
count  that  the  ideal  Sabbath.  The  Puritans 
found  it  when  they  appeared.  The  English 
Reformation  found  it  when  it  came.  And  the 
Bible  found  it  when  at  last  it  came  out  of  ob- 
scurity and  laid  hold  on  national  conditions. 
Whatever  is  to  be  said  of  other  races,  every 
period  of  English-speaking  history  assures  us 
that  our  moral  power  increases  or  weakens  with 
the  rise  or  fall  of  Sabbath  reverence.  The 
Puritans  saw  that.  They  saw,  as  many  other 
thoughtful  people  saw,  that  the  steady,  re- 
peated observance  of  the  Sabbath  gave  certain 
national  influences  a  chance  to  work;  reminded 
the  nation  of  certain  great  underlying  and  un- 
dying principles;  in  short,  brought  God  into 
human  thought.  The  Sunday  of  pleasure  or 
work  could  never  accomplish  that.  Both  as  re- 
ligionists and  as  patriots,  as  lovers  of  God  and 
lovers  of  men,  they  opposed  the  pleasure-Sunday 
and  held  for  the  Sabbath. 

But  that  comes  around  again  to  the  saying 
that  the  persistent  moral  appeal  of  the  Bible 

239 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

gives  it  inevitable  influence  on  history.  It  cen- 
ters thought  on  moral  issues.  It  challenges  men 
to  moral  combats. 

Such  a  force  persistently  working  in  men's 
minds  is  irresistible.  It  cannot  be  opposed;  it 
can  only  fail  by  being  neglected.  And  this  is 
the  force  which  has  been  steadily  at  work  every- 
where in  English-speaking  history  since  the 
King  James  version  came  to  be. 


LECTURE  VI 

THE   BIBLE   IN   THE   LIFE   OF   TO-DAY 

THIS  lecture  must  differ  at  two  points  from 
those  which  have  preceded  it.  In  the  first 
place,  the  other  lectures  have  dealt  entirely  with 
facts.  This  must  deal  also  with  judgments.  In 
the  earlier  lectures  we  have  avoided  any  con- 
sideration of  what  ought  to  have  been  and  have 
centered  our  interest  on  what  actually  did  occur. 
We  especially  avoided  any  argument  based  on 
a  theory  of  the  literary  characteristics  or  literary 
influence  of  the  Bible,  but  sought  first  to  find 
the  facts  and  then  to  discover  what  explained 
them.  It  might  be  very  difficult  to  determine 
what  is  the  actual  place  of  the  Bible  in  the 
life  of  to-day.  Perhaps  it  would  be  impossible 
to  give  a  broad,  fair  judgment.  It  is  quite  cer- 
tain that  the  people  of  James's  day  did  not 
realize  the  place  it  was  taking.  It  is  equally 
certain  that  many  of  those  whom  it  most  in- 
fluenced were  entirely  unconscious  of  the  fact. 
It  is  only  when  we  look  back  upon  the  scene  that 

16  241 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

we  discover  the  influence  that  was  moving  them. 
But,  while  it  is  difficult  to  say  what  the  place  of 
V  the  Bible  actually  is  in  our  own  times,  the  place 
\  it  ought  to  have  is  easier  to  point  out.  That  will 
involve  a  study  of  the  conditions  of  our  times, 
which  suggest  the  need  for  its  influence.  While 
we  must  consider  the  facts,  therefore,  we  will  be 
compelled  to  pass  some  judgments  also,  and 
therein  this  lecture  must  differ  from  the  others. 
The  second  fact  of  difference  is  that  while  the 
earlier  lectures  have  dealt  with  the  King  James 
version,  this  must  deal  rather  with  the  Bible. 
For  the  King  James  version  is  not  the  Bible. 
There  are  many  versions;  there  is  but  one 
Bible.  Whatever  the  translators  put  into  the 
various  tongues,  the  Bible  itself  remains  the 
same.  There  are  values  in  the  new  versions; 
but  they  are  simply  the  old  value  of  the  Bible 
itself.  It  is  a  familiar  maxim  that  the  newest 
version  is  the  oldest  Bible.  We  are  not  making 
the  Bible  up  to  date  when  we  make  a  new  ver- 
sion; we  are  only  getting  back  to  its  date.  A 
revision  in  our  day  is  the  effort  to  take  out  of 
the  original  writings  what  men  of  King  James's 
day  may  have  put  in,  and  give  them  so  much  the 
better  chance.  There  is  no  revised  Bible;  there  is 
only  a  revised  version.  Readers  sometimes  feel 
disturbed  at   what  they   consider  the   changes 

242 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

made  in  the  Bible.  The  fact  is,  the  revision 
which  deserves  the  name  is  lessening  the  changes 
in  the  Bible;  it  is  giving  us  the  Bible  as  it 
actually  was  and  taking  from  us  elements  which 
were  not  part  of  it.  One  can  sympathize  with 
the  eloquent  Dr.  Storrs,  who  declared,  in  an 
address  in  1879,  that  he  was  against  any  new 
version  because  of  the  history  of  the  King  James 
version,  describing  it  as  a  great  oak  with  roots  ,\ 
running  deep  and  branches  spreading  wide.  He 
declared  we  were  not  ready  to  give  it  up  for  any 
modern  tulip-tree.  There  is  something  in  that, 
though  such  figures  are  not  always  good  argu- 
ment. Yet  the  value  to  any  book  of  a  worthy 
translation  is  beyond  calculation.  The  out- 
standing literary  illustration  of  that  fact  is 
familiar.  The  Ruhaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam  lay 
in  Persian  literature  and  in  different  English 
translations  long  before  Fitzgerald  made  it  a 
household  classic  for  literary  people.  The  trans- 
lator made  the  book  for  us  in  more  marked  way 
than  the  original  writer  did.  In  somewhat  the 
same  way  the  King  James  version  gave  to  the 
English-speaking  people  the  Bible;  and  no  other 
version  has  taken  its  place. 

Yet  that  was  not  a  mistaken  move  nearly 
forty  years  ago,  when  the  revision  of  the  King 
James   version   was  proposed   and   undertaken. 

243 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

Thirty  years  ago  (1881)  it  was  completed  in  what 
we  ordinarily  call  the  Revised  Version,  and  ten 
years  ago  (1901)  the  American  form  of  that 
Revised  Version  appeared.  Few  things  could 
more  definitely  prove  the  accepted  place  of  the 
King  James  version  than  the  fact  that  we  seem 
to  hear  less  to-day  of  the  Revised  Version  than 
we  used  to  hear,  and  that,  while  the  American 
Revised  Version  is  incomparably  the  best  in 
existence  in  its  reproduction  of  the  original,  even 
it  makes  way  slowly.  In  less  than  forty  years 
the  King  James  version  crowded  all  its  com- 
petitors ojff  the  field.  The  presence  of  the  Re- 
vised Version  of  1881  has  not  appreciably  affected 
the  sales  or  the  demand  for  the  King  James  ver- 
sion. In  the  minds  of  most  people  the  English 
and  the  American  revisions  stand  as  admirable 
commentaries  on  the  King  James  version.  If 
one  wishes  to  know  wherein  the  King  James 
version  failed  of  representing  the  original,  he  will 
learn  it  better  from  those  versions  than  from 
any  number  of  commentaries;  but  the  number 
of  those  to  whom  one  or  other  of  the  versions 
has  supplanted  the  King  James  version  is  not 
so  large  as  might  have  been  expected. 
I  There  were  several  reasons  for  a  new  English 
version  of  the  Bible.  It  was,  of  course,  no  in- 
dignity   to    the    King    James    version.     Those 

244 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

translators  frankly  said  that  they  had  no  hope 
to  make  a  final  version  of  the  Scriptures.  It 
would  be  very  strange  if  in  three  hundred  years 
language  should  not  have  grown  by  reason 
of  the  necessities  of  the  race  that  used  it,  so  that 
at  some  points  a  book  might  be  outgrown.  In 
another  lecture  it  has  been  intimated  that  the 
English  Bible,  by  reason  of  its  constant  use,  has 
tended  to  fix  and  confirm  the  English  language. 
But  no  one  book,  nor  any  set  of  books,  could 
confine  a  living  tongue.  Some  of  the  reasons  for 
a  new  version  which  give  value  to  these  two  re- 
visions may  be  mentioned. 

1.  Though  the  King  James  version  was  made 
just  after  the  literary  renaissance,  the  classical 
learning  of  to-day  is  far  in  advance  of  that  day. 
The  King  James  version  is  occasionally  defective 
in  its  use  of  tenses  and  verbs  in  the  Greek  and 
also  in  the  Hebrew.  We  have  Greek  and  He- 
brew scholars  who  are  able  more  exactly  to  re- 
produce in  English  the  meaning  of  the  original. 
It  would  be  strange  if  that  were  not  so. 

2.  Then  there  have  been  new  and  important 
discoveries  of  Biblical  literature  which  date 
earlier  in  Christian  history  than  any  our  fathers 
knew  three  hundred  years  ago.  In  some  in- 
stances those  earlier  discoveries  have  shown  that 
a  phrase  here  or  there  has  been  wrongly  intro- 

245 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

duced  into  the  text.  There  has  been  no  marked 
instance  where  a  phrase  was  added  by  the  re- 
visers; that  is,  a  phrase  dropped  out  of  the 
original  and  now  replaced.  One  illustration  of 
the  omission  of  a  phrase  will  be  enough.  In 
the  fifth  chapter  of  I  John  the  seventh  verse 
reads:  "For  there  are  three  that  bear  record 
in  heaven,  the  Father,  the  Word,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  these  three  are  one."  In  the  re- 
vised versions  it  is  omitted,  because  it  seems 
quite  certain  that  it  was  not  in  the  original 
writing.  It  does  not  at  all  alter  the  meaning 
of  Scripture.  While  it  appears  in  most  of  the 
best  manuscripts  which  were  available  for  the 
King  James  translators,  earlier  manuscripts 
found  since  that  time  have  shown  that  it  was 
formerly  written  at  the  side  as  a  gloss,  and  was 
by  some  transcriber  set  over  in  the  text  itself. 
The  process  of  making  the  early  manuscripts 
shows  how  easily  that  could  have  occurred. 
Let  us  suppose  that  two  or  three  manuscripts 
were  being  made  at  once  by  different  copyists. 
One  was  set  to  read  the  original;  as  he  read,  the 
others  wrote.  It  would  be  easy  to  suppose  that 
he  might  read  this  marginal  reference  as  a  suit- 
able commentary  on  the  text,  and  that  one  or 
more  of  the  writers  could  have  written  it  in  the 
text.     It  could  easily  happen  also  that  a  copyist, 

246 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

even  seeing  where  it  stood,  might  suppose  it  had 
been  omitted  by  the  earlier  copyist,  and  that  he 
had  completed  his  work  by  putting  it  on  the 
margin.  So  the  next  copyist  would  put  it  into 
his  own  text.  Once  in  a  manuscript,  it  would 
readily  become  part  of  the  accepted  form.  Dis- 
coveries that  bring  that  sort  of  thing  to  light 
are  of  value  in  giving  us  an  accurate  version  of 
the  original  Bible. 

3.  Then  there  are  in  our  King  James  version 
a  few  archaic  and  obsolete  phrases.  We 
have  already  spoken  of  them.  Most  of  them 
have  been  avoided  in  the  revised  versions.  The 
neuter  possessive  pronoun,  for  example,  has  been 
put  in.  Animal  names  have  been  clarified, 
obsolete  expressions  have  been  replaced  by  more 
familiar  ones,  and  so  on. 

4.  Then  there  were  certain  inaccuracies  in 
the  King  James  version.  The  fact  is  familiar 
that  they  transliterated  certain  words  which 
they  could  not  well  translate.  In  the  revised 
versions  that  has  been  carried  farther  still.  The 
words  which  they  translated  "hell"  have  been 
put  back  into  their  Hebrew  and  Greek  equiva- 
lents, and  appear  as  Sheol  and  Hades.  Another 
instance  is  that  of  an  Old  Testament  word, 
Asherah,  which  was  translated  always  "grove," 
and  was  used  to  describe  the  object  of  worship 

247 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

of  the  early  enemies  of  Israel.  The  translation 
does  not  quite  represent  the  fact,  and  the  re- 
visers have  therefore  replaced  the  old  Hebrew 
word  Asherah.  The  transliterations  of  the  King 
James  version  have  not  been  changed  into  trans- 
lations. Instead,  the  number  of  transliterations 
has  been  increased  in  the  interest  of  accuracy. 
At  one  point  one  might  incline  to  be  adversely 
critical  of  the  American  revisers.  They  have 
transliterated  the  Hebrew  word  Jehovah;  so 
they  have  taken  sides  in  a  controversy  where 
scholars  have  room  to  differ.  The  version  would 
have  gained  in  strength  if  it  had  retained  the 
dignified  and  noble  word  "Lord,"  which  comes 
as  near  representing  the  idea  of  the  Hebrew  word 
for  God  as  any  word  we  could  find.  It  must  be 
added  that  the  English  of  neither  of  our  new  ver- 
sions has  the  rhythm  and  movement  of  the  old 
version.  That  is  partly  because  we  are  so  ac- 
customed to  the  old  expressions  and  new  ones 
strike  the  ear  unpleasantly.  In  any  case,  the 
versions  differ  plainly  in  their  English.  It  seems 
most  unlikely  that  either  of  these  versions  shall 
ever  have  the  literary  influence  of  the  King 
James,  though  any  man  who  will  prophesy  about 
that  affects  a  wisdom  which  he  has  not. 

These,  then,  are  the  two  differences  between 
this  lecture  and  the  preceding  ones,  that  in  this 

248 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

lecture  we  shall  deal  with  judgments  as  well  as 
facts,  and  that  we  shall  deal  with  the  Bible 
A     of  to-day  rather  than  the  King  James  version. 

Passing  to  the  heart  of  the  subject,  the  ques- 
'  tion  appears  at  once  whether  the  Bible  has  or 
can  have  to-day  the  influence  or  the  place  which 
it  seems  to  have  had  in  the  past.  Two  things 
force  that  question:  Has  not  the  critical  study 
of  the  Bible  itself  robbed  it  of  its  place  of  au- 
thority, and  have  not  the  changes  of  our  times 
destroyed  its  possibilities  of  influence.'^  That  is, 
on  the  one  hand,  has  not  the  Bible  been  changed .^^ 
On  the  other  hand,  has  it  not  come  into  such  new 
conditions  that  it  cannot  do  its  old  work.'' 

It  is  a  natural  but  a  most  mistaken  idea  that 
the  critical  study  of  the  Bible  is  a  new  thing. 
From  long  before  the  childhood  of  any  of  us 
there  has  been  sharp  controversy  about  the 
Bible.  It  is  a  controversy-provoking  Book.  It 
cannot  accept  blind  faith.  It  always  has  made 
men  think,  and  it  makes  them  think  in  the  line 
of  their  own  times.  The  days  when  no  questions 
were  raised  about  the  Bible  were  the  days  when 
men  had  no  access  to  it. 

There  are  some  who  take  all  the  Bible  for 
granted.  They  know  that  there  is  indifference 
to  it  among  friends  and  in  their  social  circle; 
but  how  real  the  dispute  about  the  Bible  is  no 

249 


I 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

one  realizes  until  he  comes  where  new  ideas,  say 
ideas  of  socialism,  are  in  the  air.  There,  with 
the  breaking  of  other  chains,  is  a  mighty  effort 
to  break  this  bond  also.  In  such  circles  the 
Bible  is  little  read.  It  is  discussed,  and  time- 
worn  objections  are  bandied  about,  always  grow- 
ing as  they  pass.  In  these  circles  also  every 
supposedly  adverse  result  of  critical  study  is 
welcomed  and  remembered.  If  it  is  said  that 
there  are  unexplained  contradictions  in  the  Bible, 
that  fact  is  remembered.  But  if  it  is  said  further 
that  those  contradictions  bid  fair  to  yield  to 
further  critical  study,  or  to  a  wiser  understanding 
of  the  situations  in  which  they  are  involved,  that 
fact  is  overlooked.  The  tendency  in  these  cir- 
cles is  to  keep  alive  rather  the  adverse  phases 
of  critical  study  than  its  favorable  phases.  Some 
of  those  who  speak  most  fiercely  about  the  study 
of  the  Bible,  by  what  is  known  as  higher  criti- 
cism, are  least  intelligent  as  to  what  higher 
criticism  actually  means.  Believers  regret  it, 
and  unbelievers  rejoice  in  it.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  in  developing  any  strong  feeling  about  high- 
er criticism  one  only  falls  a  prey  to  words;  he 
mistakes  the  meaning  of  both  the  words  involved. 
Criticism  does  not  mean  finding  fault  with  the 
Bible.^     It  is  almost  an  argument  for  total  de- 

^  Jefferson,  Things  Fundamental,  p.  90. 
250 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

pravity  that  we  have  made  the  word  gain  an 
adverse  meaning,  so  that  if  the  average  man 
were  told  that  he  had  been  "criticized"  by  an- 
other he  would  suppose  that  something  had  been 
said  against  him.  Of  course,  intelligent  people 
know  that  that  is  not  necessarily  involved. 
When  Kant  wrote  The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason 
he  was  not  finding  fault  with  pure  reason.  He 
was  only  making  careful  analytical  study  of  it. 
Now,  critical  study  of  the  Bible  is  only  careful 
study  of  it.  It  finds  vastly  more  new  beauties 
than  unseen  defects.  In  the  same  way  the  adjec- 
tive "  higher  "  comes  in  for  misunderstanding.  It 
does  not  mean  superior;  it  means  more  difficult. 
Lower  criticism  is  the  study  of  the  text  itself. 
What  word  ought  to  be  here,  and  exactly  what 
does  that  word  mean?  What  is  the  compara- 
tive value  of  this  manuscript  over  against  that 
one.^  If  this  manuscript  has  a  certain  word  and 
that  other  has  a  slightly  different  one,  which 
word  ought  to  be  used.? 

Take  one  illustration  from  the  Old  Testament 
and  one  from  the  New  to  show  what  lower  or 
textual  criticism  does.  In  the  ninth  chapter  of 
Isaiah  the  third  verse  reads:  "Thou  hast  mul- 
tiplied the  nation  and  not  increased  the  joy." 
That  word  "not"  is  troublesome.  It  disagrees 
with  the  rest  of  the  passage.     Now  it  happens 

251 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

that  there  are  two  Hebrew  words  pronounced 
"lo,"  just  ahke  in  sound,  but  spelled  differently. 
One  means  "not,"  the  other  means  "to  him" 
or  "his."  Put  the  second  word  in,  and  the  sen- 
tence reads:  "Thou  hast  multiplied  the  nation 
and  increased  its  joy."  That  fits  the  context 
exactly.  Lower  criticism  declares  that  it  is 
therefore  the  probable  reading,  and  corrects  the 
text  in  that  way. 
•;  The  other  illustration  is  from  the  Epistle  of 
^^'^  James,  where  in  the  fourth  chapter  the  second 
verse  reads:  "Ye  lust,  and  have  not;  ye  kill, 
and  desire  to  have,  and  cannot  obtain ;  ye  fight 
and  war,  yet  ye  have  not,  because  ye  ask  not." 
Now  there  is  no  commentator  nor  thoughtful 
reader  who  is  not  arrested  by  that  word  "kill." 
It  does  not  seem  to  belong  there.  It  is  far  more 
violent  than  anything  else  in  the  whole  text, 
and  it  is  difficult  to  understand  in  what  sense 
the  persons  to  whom  James  was  writing  could 
be  said  to  kill.  Yet  there  is  no  Greek  manu- 
script which  does  not  have  that  word.  Well,  it 
is  in  the  field  of  lower  criticism  to  observe  that 
there  is  a  Greek  word  which  sounds  very  much 
like  this  word  "kill,"  which  means  to  envy; 
that  would  fit  exactly  into  the  whole  text  here. 
All  that  lower  criticism  can  do  is  to  point  out 
such  a  probability. 

252 


THE    GREATEST.  ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

^  When  this  form  of  criticism  has  done  its  part, 
and  careful  study  has  yielded  a  text  which  holds 
together  and  which  represents  the  very  best 
which  scholarship  can  find  for  the  original,  there 
is  still  a  field  more  difficult  than  that,  higher  in 
the  sense  that  it  demands  a  larger  and  broader 
view  of  the  whole  subject.  Here  one  studies 
the  meaning  of  the  whole,  the  ideas  in  it,  seeks 
to  find  how  the  revelation  of  God  has  progressed 
according  to  the  capacities  of  men  to  receive  it. 
Higher  criticism  is  the  careful  study  of  the  his- 
torical and  original  meanings  of  Scripture,  the 
effort  to  determine  dates  and  times  and,  so  far 
as  may  be,  the  author  of  each  writing,  analyzing 
its  ideas,  the  general  Greek  or  Hebrew  style,  the 
relation  of  part  to  part.  That  is  not  a  thing  to 
be  afraid  of.  It  is  a  method  of  study  used  in 
every  realm.  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  men 
who  have  followed  that  method  have  made  others 
afraid  of  it,  because  they  were  afraid  of  these 
men  themselves.  It  is  possible  to  claim  far 
too  much  for  such  study.  But  if  the  result  of 
higher  criticism  should  be  to  show  that  the  latter 
half  of  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  is  much  later  than 
the  earlier  half,  that  is  not  a  destruction  of  the 
Word  of  God.  It  is  not  an  irreverent  result  of 
study.  If  the  result  of  higher  criticism  is  to  show 
that  by  reason  of  its  content,  and  the  lessons 

253 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

which  it  especially  urges,  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews was  not  written  by  the  Apostle  Paul,  as  it 
does  not  at  any  point  claim  to  have  been,  why, 
that  is  not  irreverent,  that  is  not  destructive. 
There  is  a  destructive  form  of  higher  criticism; 
against  that  there  is  reason  to  set  up  bulwarks. 
But  there  is  a  constructive  form  of  it  also. 
Scholarly  opinion  will  tell  any  one  who  asks 
that  criticism  has  not  affected  the  fundamental 
values  of  the  Bible.  In  the  studies  which  have 
just  now  been  made  we  have  not  instanced  any- 
thing in  the  Bible  that  is  subject  to  change. 
No  matter  what  the  result  of  critical  study  may 
be,  the  fundamental  democracy  of  the  Scripture 
remains.  It  continues  to  make  its  persistent 
moral  appeal  on  any  terms.  Both  those  great 
facts  continue.  Other  great  facts  abide  with 
them.  And  on  their  account  it  is  to  our  interest 
to  know  as  much  as  we  can  learn  about  it.  The 
Bible  has  not  been  lessened  in  its  value,  has  not 
been  weakened  in  itself,  by  anything  that  has 
taken  place  in  critical  study.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  net  result  of  such  studies  as  archaeology  has 
been  the  confirmation  of  much  that  was  once 
disputed.  Sir  William  Ramsay  is  authority  for 
saying  that  the  spade  of  the  excavator  is  to-day 
digging  the  grave  of  many  enemies  of  the  Bible. 
y      Take  the  second  question,  whether  these  times 

254 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

have  not  in  them  elements  that  weaken  the  hold 
of  the  Bible.  There  again  we  must  distinguish 
between  facts  and  judgments.  There  are  cer- 
tain things  in  these  times  which  relax  the  hold 
of  any  authoritative  book.  There  is  a  general 
relaxing  of  the  sense  of  authority.  It  does  not 
come  alone  from  the  intellectual  awakening,  be- 
cause so  far  as  that  awakening  is  concerned,  it 
has  affected  quite  as  much  men  who  continue 
loyal  to  the  authority  of  the  Bible  as  others. 
No,  this  relaxing  of  the  sense  of  authority  is  the 
result  of  the  first  feeling  of  democracy  which 
does  not  know  law.  Democracy  ought  to  mean 
that  men  are  left  independent  of  the  control  of 
other  individuals  because  they  realize  and  wish 
to  obey  the  control  of  God  or  of  the  whole  equally 
with  their  fellows.  When,  instead,  one  feels  in- 
dependent of  others,  and  adds  to  that  no  sense 
of  a  higher  control  which  he  must  be  free  to 
obey,  the  result  is  not  democracy,  but  indi- 
vidualism. Democracy  involves  control;  in- 
dividualism does  not.  A  vast  number  of  people 
in  passing  from  any  sense  of  the  right  of  another 
individual  to  control  them  have  also  passed  out 
of  the  sense  of  the  right  of  God  or  of  the  whole 
to  control  them.  So  that  from  a  good  many  all 
sense  of  authority  has  passed.  It  is  character- 
istic of  our  age.     And  it  is  a  stage  in  our  prog- 

255 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

ress  toward  real  democracy,  toward  true  human 
liberty. 
i^  Observe  that  relaxed  sense  of  authority  in  the 
common  attitude  toward  law.  Most  men  feel 
it  right  to  disregard  a  law  of  the  community 
which  they  do  not  like.  It  appears  in  trivial 
things.  If  the  community  requires  that  ashes 
be  kept  in  a  metal  receptacle,  citizens  approve 
*  it  in  general,  but  reserve  to  themselves  the  right 
to  consider  it  a  foolish  law  and  to  do  something 
else  if  that  is  not  entirely  convenient.  If  the 
law  says  that  paper  must  not  be  thrown  on  the 
sidewalk,  it  means  little  that  it  is  the  law.  Those 
who  are  inclined  to  be  clean  and  neat  and  do 
not  like  to  see  paper  lying  around  will  keep  the 
law;  those  who  are  otherwise  will  be  indifferent 
to  it.  That  is  at  the  root  of  the  matter-of- 
course  saying  that  a  law  cannot  be  enforced 
unless  public  opinion  sustains  it.  Under  any 
democratic  system  laws  virtually  always  have  the 
majority  opinion  back  of  them;  but  the  mi- 
nority reserve  the  right  to  disregard  them  if  they 
choose,  and  the  minority  will  be  more  aggressive. 
Rising  from  those  relaxations  of  law  into  far 
more  important  ones,  it  appears  that  men  in 
business  life,  feeling  themselves  hampered  by 
legislation,  set  themselves  to  find  a  way  to  evade 
it,  justifying  themselves  in  doing  so.     The  mere 

256 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

fact  that  it  is  the  law  does  not  weigh  heavily. 
This  is,  however,  only  an  inevitable  stage  in 
progress  from  the  earliest  periods  of  democracy 
to  later  and  more  substantial  periods.  It  is  a 
stage  which  will  pass.  There  will  come  a  de- 
mocracy where  the  rule  of  the  whole  is  frankly 
recognized,  and  where  each  man  holds  himself 
independent  of  his  fellows  only  in  the  sense  that 
he  will  claim  the  right  to  hold  such  relation  to 
God  and  his  duty  as  he  himself  may  apprehend. 
In  these  times,  also,  the  development  of  tem- 
poral and  material  prosperity  with  the  intel- 
lectual mood  which  is  involved  in  that  affects 
the  attitude  of  the  age  toward  the  Bible.  Some- 
times it  is  spoken  of  as  a  scientific  age  over 
against  the  earlier  philosophical  ages.  Perhaps 
that  will  do  for  a  rough  statement  of  the  facts. 
It  is  the  age  of  experiment,  of  trying  things  out, 
and  there  naturally  works  into  men  a  feeling 
that  the  things  that  will  yield  to  the  most  ma- 
terial scientific  experimentation  are  the  things 
about  which  they  can  be  certain  and  which  are 
of  real  value.  That  naturally  involves  a  good 
deal  of  appreciation  of  the  present,  and  calls  for 
the  improvement  of  the  conditions  of  present 
life  first  of  all.  It  looks  more  important  to  see 
that  a  man  is  well  fed,  well  housed,  well  clothed, 
and  well  educated  than  that  he  should  have  the 

17  257 


// 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

interests  of  eternity  pressed  on  his  attention. 
That  is  a  comparatively  late  feeling.  It  issues 
partly  from  the  fact  that  this  is  a  scientific  age, 
when  science  has  had  its  attention  turned  to  the 
needs  of  humanity. 

Another  result  of  our  scientific  age  is  the  mag- 
nifying of  the  natural,  while  the  Bible  frankly 
asserts  the  supernatural.  No  effort  to  get  the 
supernatural  out  of  the  Bible,  in  order  to  make 
it  entirely  acceptable  to  the  man  who  scouts 
the  supernatural,  has  thus  far  proved  successful. 
Of  course,  the  supernatural  can  be  taken  out  of 
the  Bible;  but  it  will  destroy  the  Bible.  Nor  is 
there  much  gain  in  playing  with  words  and  in- 
sisting that  everything  is  supernatural  or  that 
everything  is  natural.  There  is  a  difference  be- 
tween the  two,  and  in  an  age  which  insists  upon 
nature  or  natural  laws  or  forces  or  events  as  all- 
suflScient  it  is  almost  inevitable  that  the  Bible 
should  lose  its  hold,  at  least  temporarily. 

Regarding  all  this  there  are  some  things  that 
need  to  be  said.  For  one  thing,  this,  too,  is  a 
passing  condition.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  men  are 
not  creatures  of  time.  They  actually  have 
eternal  connections,  and  the  great  outstanding 
facts  which  have  always  made  eternity  of  im- 
portance continue.  The  fact  is  that  men  con- 
tinue to  die,  and  that  the  men  who  are  left  be- 

253 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

hind  cannot  avoid  the  sense  of  mystery  and  awe 
which  is  involved  in  that  fact.  The  fact  also 
is  that  the  human  emotions  cannot  be  explained 
on  the  lower  basis,  and  the  only  reason  men 
think  they  can  be  is  because  they  have  in  the 
back  of  their  minds  the  old  explanations  which 
they  cast  into  the  lower  forms,  deceiving  them- 
selves into  thinking  they  are  new  ideas  when 
they  are  not. 

It  ought  to  be  added  that  the  Bible  has  great- 
ly suffered  in  all  its  history  at  the  hands  of  men 
who  have  believed  in  it  and  have  fought  in  its 
behalf.  Many  of  the  controversies  which  were 
hottest  were  needless  and  injurious.  All  the 
folly  has  not  been  on  one  side.  Some  one  re- 
ferred the  other  day  to  a  list  of  more  than  a 
hundred  scientific  theories  which  were  proposed 
at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  and  aban- 
doned at  the  end  of  it.  Scientific  men  are  feel- 
ing their  way,  many  of  them  reverently  and 
devoutly,  some  of  them  rather  blatantly  and 
with  a  readiness  for  publication,  which  hastens 
them  into  notoriety.  But  there  has  been  enough 
folly  on  both  sides  to  make  every  one  go  cau- 
tiously. It  has  been  remarked  that  in  Dr. 
Draper's  book  The  Conflict  Between  Science  and 
Religion  he  makes  science  appear  as  a  strong- 
limbed  angel  of  God  whereas  religion  is  always 

259 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

a  great  ass.  The  title  of  the  book  itself  is 
not  fair.  In  no  proper  understanding  of  the 
words  can  there  be  any  conflict  between  science 
and  religion.  There  can  be  a  conflict,  as  Dr. 
Andrew  D.  White  puts  it,  between  science  and 
theology.  There  can  certainly  be  contest  be- 
tween scientists  and  religionists.  Science  and 
religion  have  no  conflict. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  how  far  back  most 
of  the  supposed  conflicts  actually  lie.  There  is 
no  warfare  now;  and,  while  our  fathers  one  or  two 
generations  ago  felt  that  they  must  fly  to  the 
defense  of  religion  against  the  attacks  of  science, 
no  man  wastes  his  strength  doing  that  to-day. 
That  period  has  passed.  The  trouble  is  that  some 
good  people  do  not  know  it,  and  are  just  fond 
enough  of  a  bit  of  a  tussle  to  keep  up  the  fight- 
ing in  the  mountain-passes  while  out  in  the  plain 
the  main  armies  have  laid  down  their  arms  and 
are  busy  tilling  the  soil. 

The  period  of  conflict  is  past,  partly  because 
we  are  learning  to  distinguish  between  the  Bible 
as  it  really  is  and  certain  long-established  ideas 
about  the  Bible  which  came  from  other  sources 
and  have  become  attached  to  it  until  it  seemed 
to  sustain  them.  The  proper  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion is  entirely  compatible  with  the  Bible.  The 
great  Dr.   Hodge  declared  that   the  consistent 

260 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

Darwinian  must  be  an  atheist.  For  that  matter, 
Shelley  defended  himself  by  saying  that,  of 
course,  "the  consistent  Newtonian  must  neces- 
sarily be  an  atheist."  But  fifty  years  have  made 
great  changes  in  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  and 
the  old  scare  has  been  over  for  some  time.  New- 
ton is  honored  in  the  church  quite  as  much  as 
in  the  university,  and  Darwin  is  not  a  name 
to  frighten  anybody.  Understanding  evolution 
better  and  knowing  the  Bible  better,  the  two  do 
not  jangle  out  of  tune  so  badly  but  that  har- 
mony is  promised. 

The  doctrine  of  the  antiquity  of  the  world  is 
entirely  compatible  with  the  Bible,  though  it  is 
not  compatible  with  the  dates  which  Arch- 
bishop Ussher,  in  the  time  of  King  James,  put 
at  the  head  of  the  columns.  That  is  so  with 
other  scientific  theories.  Any  one  who  has  read 
much  of  history  has  attended  the  obsequies  of 
so  many  theories  in  the  realm  of  science  that  he 
ought  to  know  that  he  is  wasting  his  strength 
in  trying  to  bring  about  a  constant  reconcilia- 
tion between  scientific  and  religious  theories.  It 
is  his  part  to  keep  an  open  mind  in  assurance  of 
the  unity  of  truth,  an  assurance  that  there  is  no 
fact  which  can  possibly  come  to  light  and  no 
true  theory  of  facts  which  can  possibly  be  formed 
which  does  not  serve  the  interest  of  the  truth, 

261 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

which  the  Bible  also  presents.  The  Bible  does 
not  concern  itself  with  all  departments  of  knowl- 
edge. So  far  as  mistakes  have  been  made  on 
the  side  of  those  who  believe  it,  they  have  issued 
from  forgetting  that  fact  more  than  from  any 
other  one  cause. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  has  sometimes  occurred 
that  believers  in  the  Bible  have  been  quite  too 
eager  to  accommodate  themselves  to  purely 
passing  phases  of  objection  to  it.  The  matter 
mentioned  a  moment  ago,  the  excision  of  the 
supernatural,  is  a  case  in  point.  The  easy  and 
glib  way  in  which  some  have  sought  to  get 
around  difficulties,  by  talking  in  large  terms 
about  the  progressiveness  of  the  revelation,  as 
though  the  progress  were  from  error  to  truth, 
instead  of  from  half  light  to  full  light,  is  another 
illustration.  The  nimble  way  in  which  we  have 
turned  what  is  given  as  history  into  fiction,  and 
allowed  imagination  to  roam  through  the  Bible, 
is  another  illustration.  One  of  our  later  writers 
tells  the  story  of  Jonah,  and  says  it  sounds  like 
fiction;  why  not  call  it  fiction?  Another  tells 
the  story  of  the  exodus  from  Egypt,  and  says  it 
sounds  like  fiction;  why  not  call  it  fiction? 
Well,  certainly  the  objection  is  not  to  the  presence 
of  fiction  in  the  Bible.  It  is  there,  openly,  con- 
fessedly, unashamed.     Fiction  can  be  used  with 

262 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

great  profit  in  teaching  religious  truth.  But 
fiction  may  not  masquerade  in  the  guise  of  his- 
tory, if  men  are  to  be  led  by  it  or  mastered  by 
it.  If  the  way  to  be  rid  of  difficulties  in  a  narra- 
tive is  to  turn  it  into  pious  fiction,  there  are 
other  instances  where  it  might  be  used  for  re- 
lief in  emergencies.  The  story  of  the  cruci- 
fixion of  Christ  can  be  told  so  that  it  sounds  like 
fiction;  why  not  call  it  fiction .^^  Certainly  the 
story  of  the  conversion  of  Paul  can  be  made  to 
sound  like  fiction;  why  not  call  it  fiction.? 
And  there  is  hardly  any  bit  of  narrative  that  can 
be  made  to  sound  so  like  fiction  as  the  landing 
of  the  Pilgrims;  why  not  call  that  fiction.?  It 
is  the  easy  way  out;  the  difficulties  are  all  gone 
like  Alice's  cat,  and  there  is  left  only  the  broad 
smile  of  some  moral  lesson  to  be  learned  from 
the  fiction.  It  is  not,  however,  the  courageous 
nor  the  perfectly  square  way  out.  Violence  has 
to  be  done  to  the  plain  narrative;  historical 
statement  has  to  be  made  only  a  mask.  And 
the  only  reason  for  it  is  that  there  are  difficulties 
not  yet  cleared.  As  for  the  characters  involved, 
Charles  Reade,  the  novelist,  calling  himself  "a 
veteran  writer  of  fiction,"  declares  that  the  ex- 
planation of  these  characters,  Jonah  being  one 
of  them,  by  invention  is  incredible  and  absurd: 
"Such  a  man  [as  himself]   knows  the  artifices 

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THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

and  the  elements  of  art.  Here  the  artifices  are 
absent,  and  the  elements  surpassed."  It  is  not 
uncommon  for  one  who  has  found  this  easy 
way  out  of  difficulties  to  declare  with  a  wave  of 
his  hand,  that  everybody  now  knows  that  this 
or  that  book  in  the  Bible  is  fiction,  when,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  that  is  not  at  all  an  admitted 
opinion.  The  Bible  will  never  gain  its  place 
and  retain  its  authority  while  those  who  believe 
in  it  are  spineless  and  topple  over  at  the  first 
touch  of  some  one's  objection.  It  could  not  be  a 
great  Book;  it  could  not  serve  the  purposes  of  a 
race  if  it  presented  no  problems  of  understand- 
ing and  of  belief,  and  all  short  and  easy  methods 
of  getting  rid  of  those  problems  are  certain  to 
leave  important  'elements  of  them  out  of  sight. 
All  this  means  that  the  changes  of  these  times 
rather  present  additional  reason  for  a  renewed 
hold  on  the  Bible.  It  presents  what  the  times 
peculiarly  need.  Instead  of  making  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Bible  impossible,  these  changes 
make  the  need  for  the  Bible  the  greater  and 
give  it  greater  opportunity. 

I      Add  three  notable  points  at  which  these  times 
■  feel  and  still  need  the  influence  of  the  Bibl^. 
First,  they  have  and  still  need  its  literary  in- 
fluence.    So  far  as  its  ideas  and  forces  and  words 

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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

are  interwoven  in  the  great  literature  of  the  past, 
it  is  essential  still  to  the  understanding  of  that 
literature.  It  remains  true  that  English  litera- 
ture, certainly  of  the  past  and  also  of  the  present, 
cannot  be  understood  without  knowledge  of  the 
Bible.  The  Yale  professor  of  literature,  quoted 
so  often,  says:  "It  would  be  worth  while  to  read 
the  Bible  carefully  and  repeatedly,  if  only  as  a 
key  to  modern  culture,  for  to  those  who  are  un- 
familiar with  its  teachings  and  its  diction  all 
j  that  is  best  in  English  literature  of  the  present 
century  is  as  a  sealed  book." 

From  time  to  time  there  occur  painful  re- 
minders of  the  fact  that  men  supposed  to  know 
literature  do  not  understand  it  because  they  are 
not  familiar  with  the  Bible.  Some  years  ago 
a  college  president  tested  a  class  of  thirty-four 
men  with  a  score  of  extracts  from  Tennyson, 
each  of  which  contained  a  Scriptural  allusion, 
none  of  them  obscure.  The  replies  were  sug- 
gestive and  quite  appalling.  Tennyson  wrote,  in 
the  "Supposed  Confessions": 

"My  sin  was  a  thorn  among  the  thorns  that 
girt  Thy  brow." 

Of  these  thirty -four  young  men  nine  of  them 
did  not  understand  that  quotation.  Tennyson 
wrote : 

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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

"Like  Hezekiah's,  backward  runs 
The  shadow  of  my  days." 

Thirty-two  of  the  thirty -four  did  not  know  what 
that  meant.     The  meaning  of  the  line, 

"For  I  have  flung  thee  pearls  and  find  thee  swine/* 

I  was  utterly  obscure  to  twenty-two  of  the  thirty- 
j  four.  One  of  them  said  it  was  a  reference  to 
"good  opportunities  given  but  not  improved." 
Another  said  it  was  equivalent  to  the  counsel 
"not  to  expect  to  find  gold  in  a  hay-stack." 
Even  the  line, 

"A  Jonah's  gourd 
Up  in  one  night,  and  due  to  sudden  sun," 

,  was  utterly  baflfling  to  twenty-eight  of  the 
I  thirty-four.  One  of  them  spoke  of  it  as  an 
'  "allusion  to  the  uncertainty  of  the  length  of 
life."  Another  thought  it  was  a  reference  to 
"the  occasion  of  Jonah's  being  preserved  by  the 
whale."  Another  counted  it  "an  allusion  to  the 
emesis  of  Jonah  by  the  whale."  Another  con- 
sidered it  a  reference  to  "the  swallowing  of 
Jonah  by  a  whale,"  and  yet  another  considered 
that  it  referred  to  "things  grand,  but  not  worthy 
of  worship  because  they  are  perishable."  It  is 
amazing  to  read  that  in  response  to  Tennyson's 
lines, 

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THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

"Follow    Light    and    do    the   Right — for    man    can 
half  control  his  doom — 
Till  you  find  the  deathless  Angel  seated  in  the 
vacant  tomb," 

only  sixteen  were  able  to  give  an  explanation  of 
its  meaning!  The  lines  from  the  "  Holy  Grail  " 
were  equally  baffling: 

"Perhaps  like  Him  of  Cana  in  Holy  Writ, 
Our  Arthur  kept  his  best  until  the  last." 

Twenty-four  of  these  thirty-four  young  men 
could  not  recall  what  that  meant.  One  said  that 
the  keeping  of  the  best  wine  until  the  last  meant 
"waiting  till  the  last  moment  to  be  baptized!" 
All  that  may  be  solely  the  fault  of  these  young 
men.  Professor  Lounsbury  once  said  that  his 
experience  in  the  class-room  had  taught  him  the 
infinite  capacity  of  the  human  mind  to  with- 
stand the  introduction  of  knowledge.  Very 
likely  earnest  effort  had  been  made  to  teach 
these  young  men  the  Bible;  but  it  is  manifest 
that  they  had  successfully  resisted  the  efforts. 
If  Tennyson  were  the  only  poet  who  could  not 
be  understood  without  knowledge  of  the  Bible, 
it  might  not  matter  so  much,  but  no  one  can 
read  Browning  nor  Carlyle  nor  Macaulay  nor 
Huxley  with  entire  intelligence  without  knowl- 
edge of  the  greater  facts  and  forces  of  Scripture. 

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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

The  value  of  the  allusions  can  be  shown  by  com- 
paring them  with  those  of  mythology.  No  one 
can  read  most  of  Shelley  with  entire  satisfaction 
without  a  knowledge  of  Greek  mythology.  That 
is  one  reason  why  Shelley  has  so  much  passed 
out  of  popularity.  We  do  not  know  Greek 
mythology,  and  we  have  very  largely  lost  Shelley 
from  our  literary  possession.  The  chief  power 
of  these  other  great  writers  will  go  from  us  when 
our  knowledge  of  the  Scripture  goes. 

The  danger  is  not  simply  with  reference  to  the 
great  literature  of  the  past.  There  is  danger  of 
losing  appreciation  of  the  more  delicate  touches 
of  current  literature,  sometimes  of  a  complete 
missing  of  the  meaning.  An  orator  describing 
present  .political  and  social  conditions  used  a  fine 
phrase,  that  "it  is  time  the  nation  camped  for  a 
season  at  the  foot  of  the  mount."  Only  a  knowl- 
edge of  Bible  history  will  bring  as  a  flash  before 
one  the  nation  in  the  desert  at  Sinai  learning 
the  meaning  and  power  of  law.  Yet  an  in- 
telligent man,  hearing  that  remark,  said  that 
he  counted  it  a  fine  figure,  that  he  thought  there 
did  come  in  the  life  of  every  nation  a  time  before 
it  began  its  ascent  to  the  heights  when  it 
ought  to  pause  and  camp  at  the  foot  of  the 
mountain  to  get  its  breath!  After  Lincoln's 
assassination  Garfield  stood  on  the  steps  in  New 

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THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

j  York,  and  said :  "  Clouds  and  darkness  are  around 
I  about  him!  God  reigns  and  the  government  at 
I  Washington  still  lives!"  Years  after,  some  one 
referring  to  that,  said  that  it  was  a  beautiful 
sentence,  that  the  reference  to  "clouds  and 
darkness"  was  a  beautiful  symbolism,  but  that 
Garfield  had  a  great  knack  in  the  building-up  of 
fine  phrases !  He  lacked  utterly  the  background 
of  the  great  Psalm  which  was  in  Garfield's  mind, 
and  which  gives  that  phrase  double  meaning. 
If  we  go  back  to  Tennyson  again,  some  one  has 
proposed  the  inquiry  why  he  should  have  called 
one  of  his  poems  "Rizpah,"  since  there  was  no 
one  of  that  name  mentioned  in  the  whole  poem! 
When,  some  years  ago,  a  book  was  published. 
The  Children  of  Gideon,  one  of  the  reviewers 
could  not  understand  why  that  title  was  used, 
since  no  one  of  that  name  appeared  in  the  entire 
volume.  And  when  Mrs.  Wharton's  book.  The 
House  of  Mirth,  came  out  some  one  spoke  of  the 
irony  of  the  title;  but  it  is  the  irony  of  the  Scrip- 
tures and  the  book  calls  for  a  Scriptural  knowl- 
edge for  its  entire  understanding. 

Take  even  an  encyclopedia  article.  Who  can 
understand  these  two  sentences  without  instant 
knowledge  of  Scripturcf^  "Marlowe  and  Shakes- 
peare, the  young  Davids  of  the  day,  tried  the 
armor  of  Saul  before  they  went  out  to  battle. 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

then  wisely  laid  it  off."  "Arnold,  like  Aaron 
of  old,  stands  between  the  dead  and  the  living; 
but,  unlike  Aaron,  he  holds  no  smoking  censor  of 
propitiation  to  stay  the  plague  which  he  feels 
to  be  devouring  his  generation."^  That  is  in  an 
encyclopedia  to  which  young  people  are  often 
referred.  What  will  they  make  out  of  it  with- 
out the  Bible .^  In  a  widely  distributed  school 
paper,  in  the  question-and-answer  department, 
occurs  the  inquiry:  "Who  composed  the  in- 
scription on  the  Liberty  Bell.'^"  The  inscription 
is,  "Proclaim  liberty  throughout  all  the  land  to 
all  the  inhabitants  thereof."  ^  It  is  to  be  hoped 
it  was  a  very  young  person  who  needed  to  ask 
who  "composed"  that  expression! 

This  applies  to  all  the  great  classics.  There 
has  come  about  a  "decay  of  literary  allusions," 
as  one  of  our  papers  editorially  says.  In  much 
of  our  writing,  either  the  transient  or  the  per- 
manent, men  can  no  longer  risk  easy  reference 
to  classical  literature.  "Readers  of  American 
biography  must  often  be  struck  with  the  im- 
portant part  which  literary  recollection  played 
in  the  life  of  a  cultured  person  a  generation  or 
two  ago.  These  men  had  read  Homer,  Xeno- 
phon  and  Virgil,  Shakespeare,  Byron  and  Words- 

^  New  International  Encyclopedia,  art.  on  English  Literature. 
^  Current  Events,  January  12,  1912. 
270 


u 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

worth,  Lamb,  De  Quincey  and  Coleridge.  They 
were  not  afraid  of  being  called  pedants  because 
they  occasionally  used  a  Latin  phrase  or  re- 
ferred to  some  great  name  of  Greece  or  Rome." 
That  is  not  so  commonly  true  to-day.  Especial- 
ly is  there  danger  of  losing  easy  acquaintance 
with  the  great  Bible  references. 

There  are  familiar  reasons  for  it.  For  one 
thing,  there  has  been  a  great  increase  of  litera- 
ture. Once  there  was  little  to  read,  and  that 
little  became  familiar.  One  would  have  been 
ashamed  to  pretend  to  culture  and  not  to  know 
such  literature  well.  Now  there  is  so  much  that 
one  cannot  know  it  all,  and  most  men  follow  the 
line  of  least  resistance.  That  line  is  not  where 
great  literature  lies.  Once  the  problem  was  how 
to  get  books  enough  for  a  family  library.  Now  the 
problem  is  how  to  get  library  enough  for  the  books. 
Magazines,  papers,  volumes  of  all  grades  over- 
flow. "The  Bible  has  been  buried  beneath  a 
landslide  of  books."  The  result  is  that  the 
greatest  literary  landmark  of  the  English  tongue 
threatens  to  become  unknown,  or  else  to  be 
looked  upon  as  of  antiquarian  rather  than  present 
worth.  There  our  Puritan  fathers  had  the  ad- 
vantage. As  President  Faunce  puts  it:  "For 
them  the  Bible  was  the  norm  and  goal  of  all 
study.     They   had   achieved   the   concentration 

271 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

of  studies,  and  the  Bible  was  the  center.  They 
learned  to  read  that  they  might  read  the  litera- 
ture of  Israel;  their  writing  was  heavy  with 
noble  Old  Testament  phrases;  the  names  of  Old 
Testament  heroes  they  gave  to  their  children; 
its  words  of  immortal  hope  they  inscribed  on 
their  tombstones;  its  Mosaic  commonwealth  they 
sought  to  realize  in  England  and  America;  its 
decalogue  was  the  foundation  of  their  laws,  and 
its  prophecies  were  a  light  shining  in  a  dark 
place.  Such  a  unification  of  knowledge  pro- 
duced a  unified  character,  simple,  stalwart,  in- 
vincible." It  is  very  different  in  our  own  day. 
As  so-called  literature  increases  it  robs  great 
literature  of  its  conspicuous  outstanding  char- 
acter, and  many  men  who  pride  themselves  on 
the  amount  they  read  would  do  far  better  to 
read  a  thousandth  part  as  much  and  let  that 
smaller  part  be  good. 

Another  reason  for  this  decay  of  the  influence  of 
literary  knowledge  of  the  Bible  is  the  shallowness 
of  much  of  our  thinking.  If  the  Bible  were 
needed  for  nothing  else  in  present  literary  life, 
it  would  be  needed  for  the  deepening  of  literary 
currents.  The  vast  flood  of  flotsam  and  jetsam 
which  pours  from  the  presses  seldom  floats  on  a 
deep  current.  It  is  surface  matter  for  the  most 
part.     It  does  not  take  itself  seriously,  and  it 

272 


V 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

is  quite  impossible  to  take  it  seriously.  It  does 
not  deal  with  great  themes,  or  when  it  touches 
upon  them  it  deals  with  them  in  a  trifling  way. 
To  men  interested  chiefly  in  literature  of  this 
kind  the  Bible  cannot  be  of  interest. 

That  is  a  passing  condition,  and  out  of  it  is  cer- 
tain to  come  here  and  there  a  masterpiece  of 
literature.  When  it  does  appear,  it  will  be 
found  to  reveal  the  same  influences  that  have 
made  great  literature  in  the  past,  issuing  more 
largely  from  the  Bible  than  from  any  other  book. 
That  is  the  main  point  of  a  bit  of  counsel  which 
Professor  Bo  wen  used  to  give  his  Harvard 
students.  To  form  a  good  English  style,  he 
told  them,  a  student  ought  to  keep  near  at  hand 
a  Bible,  a  volume  of  Shakespeare,  and  Bacon's 
essays.  That  group  of  books  would  enlarge  the 
vocabulary,  would  supply  a  store  of  words, 
phrases,  and  allusions,  and  save  the  necessity 
of  ransacking  a  meager  and  hide-bound  diction 
in  order  to  make  one's  meaning  plain.  Coleridge 
in  his  T able-Talk  adds  that  "intense  study  of  the 
Bible  will  keep  any  writer  from  being  vulgar  in 
point  of  style."  So  it  may  be  urged  that  these 
times  have  and  still  need  the  literary  influence 
of  the  Bible. 

Add  that  the  times  have  and  still  need  its 
moral  steadying.     Every  age  seems  to  its  own 

18  273 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

thoughtful  people  to  lack  moral  steadiness,  and 
they  tend  to  compare  it  with  other  ages  which 
look  steadier.  That  is  a  virtually  invariable 
opinion  of  such  men.  The  comparison  with 
other  ages  is  generally  fallacious,  yet  the  fact  is 
real  for  each  age.  Many  things  tend  in  this  age 
to  unsettle  moral  solidity.  Some  of  them  are 
peculiar  to  this  time,  others  are  not.  But  one 
of  the  great  influences  which  the  Bible  is  per- 
petually tending  to  counteract  is  stated  in  best 
terms  in  an  experience  of  Henry  M.  Stanley. 
It  was  on  that  journey  to  Africa  when  he  found 
David  Livingstone,  under  commission  from  one 
of  the  great  newspapers.  Naturally  he  had  made 
up  his  load  as  light  as  possible.  Of  books  he 
had  none  save  the  Bible;  but  wrapped  about  his 
bottles  of  medicine  and  other  articles  were  many 
copies  of  newspapers.  Stanley  says  that "  strang- 
est of  all  his  experiences  were  the  changes  wrought 
in  him  by  the  reading  of  the  Bible  and  those 
newspapers  in  melancholy  Africa."  He  was  fre- 
quently sick  with  African  fever,  and  took  up  the 
Bible  to  while  away  his  hours  of  recovery. 
During  the  hours  of  health  he  read  the  news- 
papers. "And  thus,  somehow  or  other,  my  views 
toward  newspapers  were  entirely  recast,"  while 
he  held  loyal  to  his  profession  as  a  newspaper 
man.     This  is  the  critical  sentence  in  Stanley's 

274 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

telling  of  the  story:  "As  seen  in  my  loneliness, 
/  there  was  this  difference  between  the  Bible  and 
the  newspapers.  The  one  reminded  me  that 
apart  from  God  my  life  was  but  a  bubble  of  air, 
and  it  made  me  remember  my  Creator;  the 
other  fostered  arrogance  and  worldliness."  ^ 
There  is  no  denying  such  an  experience  as  that. 
That  is  precisely  the  moral  effect  of  the  Bible 
as  compared  with  the  moral  effect  of  the  news- 
paper accounts  of  current  life.  Democracy 
should  always  be  happy;  but  it  must  always 
be  serious,  morally  steady.  Anything  that  tends 
to  give  men  light  views  of  wrong,  to  make  evil 
things  humorous,  to  set  out  the  ridiculous  side 
of  gross  sins  is  perilous  to  democracy.  It  not 
only  is  injurious  to  personal  morals;  it  is  bound 
sooner  or  later  to  injure  public  morals.  There 
is  nothing  that  so  persistently  counteracts  that 
tendency  of  current  literature  as  does  the 
Bible. 
i^  From  an  ethical  point  of  view,  "the  ethical 
content  of  Paul  is  quite  as  important  for  us  as 
the  system  of  Schopenhauer  or  Nietzsche.  The 
organization  of  the  New  England  town  meeting  is 
no  more  weighty  for  the  American  boy  than  the 
organization  of  the  early  Christian  Church.  John 
Adams  and  John  Hancock  and  Abraham  Lin- 

1  Autobiography,  p.  252. 

275 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

coin  are  only  the  natural  successors  of  the  great 
Hebrew  champions  of  liberty  and  righteousness 
who  faced  Pharoah  and  Ahab  and  put  to  flight 
armies  of  aliens."  But  aside  from  the  definite 
ethical  teaching  of  the  Bible  there  is  need  for 
that  strong  impression  of  ethical  values  which  it 
gives  in  the  characters  around  which  it  has 
gathered.  The  conception  of  the  Bible  which 
makes  it  appear  as  a  steady  progression  should 
add  to  its  authority,  not  take  from  it.  The  de- 
velopment is  not  from  error  to  truth,  but  from 
light  to  more  light.  It  is  sometimes  said  that 
the  standards  of  morality  of  some  parts  of 
Scripture  are  not  to  be  commended.  But  they 
are  not  the  standards  of  morality  of  Scripture, 
but  of  their  times.  They  are  not  taught  in 
Scripture;  they  are  only  stated;  and  they  are  so 
stated  that  instantly  a  thoughtful  man  discovers 
that  they  are  stated  to  be  condemned.  When 
did  it  become  true  that  all  that  is  told  of  a  good 
man  is  to  be  approved  .^^  It  is  not  pretended 
that  Abraham  did  right  always.  David  was  con- 
fessedly wrong.  They  move  much  of  the  time 
in  half-light,  yet  the  sum  total  of  the  impression 
of  their  writings  is  inevitably  and  invariably  for 
a  more  substantial  morality.  These  times  need 
the  moral  steadying  of  the  Bible  to  make  men, 
not  creatures  of  the  day  and  not  creatures  of 

276 


l^ 


THE     GREATEST     JiNGLISH     CLASSIC 

their  whims,  but  creatures  of  all  time  and  of 
fundamental  laws. 

Add  the  third  fact,  that  our  times  have  and 
still  need  the  religious  influence  of  the  Bible. 
No  democracy  can  dispense  with  religious  cul- 
ture. No  book  makes  for  religion  as  does  the 
Bible.  That  is  its  chief  purpose.  No  book  can 
take  its  place;  no  influence  can  supplant  it. 
Max  Muller  made  lifelong  study  of  the  Buddhist 
and  other  Indian  books.  He  gave  them  to  the 
English-speaking  world.  Yet  he  wrote  to  a 
friend  of  his  impression  of  the  immense  su- 
periorit}^  of  the  Bible  in  such  terms  that  his 
friend  replied:  "Yes,  you  are  right;  how  tre- 
mendously ahead  of  other  sacred  books  is  the 
Bible!  The  difference  strikes  one  as  almost  un- 
fairly great."  ^  Writing  in  an  India  paper. 
The  Kayestha  Samachar,  in  August,  1902,  a 
Hindu  writer  said:  "I  am  not  a  Christian;  but 
half  an  hour's  study  of  the  Bible  will  do  more 
to  remodel  a  man  than  a  whole  day  spent  in 
repeating  the  slokas  of  the  Purinas  or  the 
mantras  of  the  Rig- Veda."  In  the  earlier 
chapters  of  the  Koran  Christians  are  frequently 
spoken  of  as  "people  of  the  Book."  It  is  a 
suggestive  phrase.  If  Christianity  has  any  value 
for  American  life,  then  the  Bible  has  just  that 

^  Speer,  Light  of  the  World,  iv. 

277 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

value.  Christianity  is  made  by  the  Bible;  it 
has  never  been  vital  nor  nationally  influential 
for  good  without  the  Bible. 

Sometimes,  because  of  his  strong  words  re- 
garding the  conflict  between  science  and  theolo- 
gy, the  venerable  American  diplomat  and  edu- 
cator, Dr.  Andrew  D.  White,  is  thought  of  as  a 
foe  to  religion.  No  one  who  reads  his  biography 
can  have  that  impression  half  an  hour.  Near 
the  close  of  it  is  a  paragraph  of  singular  insight 
and  authority  which  fits  just  this  connection: 
"It  will,  in  my  opinion,  be  a  sad  day  for  this  or 
for  any  people  when  there  shall  have  come  in 
them  an  atrophy  of  the  religious  nature;  when 
they  shall  have  suppressed  the  need  of  communi- 
cation, no  matter  how  vague,  with  a  supreme 
power  in  the  universe;  when  the  ties  which  bind 
men  of  similar  modes  of  thought  in  the  various 
religious  organizations  shall  be  dissolved;  when 
men,  instead  of  meeting  their  fellow-men  in  as- 
semblages for  public  worship  which  give  them  a 
sense  of  brotherhood,  shall  lounge  at  home  or  in 
clubs;  when  men  and  women,  instead  of  bring- 
ing themselves  at  stated  periods  into  an  atmos- 
phere of  prayer,  praise,  and  aspiration,  to  hear 
the  discussion  of  higher  spiritual  themes,  to  be 
stirred  by  appeals  to  their  nobler  nature  in  be- 
half of  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  and  to  be  moved 

278 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

by  a  closer  realization  of  the  fatherhood  of  God 
and  the  brotherhood  of  man,  shall  stay  at  home 
and  give  their  thoughts  to  the  Sunday  papers, 
or  to  the  conduct  of  their  business,  or  to  the 
languid  search  for  some  refuge  from  boredom."  ^ 
Those  are  wise,  strong  words,  and  they  sustain 
to  the  full  what  has  been  urged,  that  these 
times  still  need  the  religious  influence  of  the 
Bible. 
/  The  influence  of  the  Bible  on  the  literary, 
moral,  and  religious  life  of  the  times  is  already 
apparent.  But  that  influence  needs  to  be  con- 
stantly strengthened.  There  remains,  there- 
fore, to  suggest  some  methods  of  giving  the  Bible 
increasing  power.  It  should  be  recognized  first 
and  last  that  only  thoughtful  people  will  do  it. 
No  help  will  come  from  careless  people.  More- 
over, only  people  who  believe  in  the  common 
folk  will  do  it.  Those  who  are  aristocrats  in 
the  sense  that  they  do  not  believe  that  common 
people  can  be  trusted  will  not  concern  them- 
selves to  increase  the  power  of  the  Bible.  But 
for  those  who  are  thoughtful  and  essentially 
democratic  the  duty  is  a  very  plain  one.  There 
are  four  great  agencies  which  may  well  magnify 
the  Bible  and  whose  influence  will  bring  the 
Bible  into  increasing  power  in  national  life. 

1  Autobiography,  vol.  ii,  p.  570. 

279  • 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

)y"  First  among  these,  of  course,  must  be  the 
Church.  The  accent  which  it  will  place  on  the 
Bible  will  naturally  be  on  its  religious  value, 
though  its  moral  value  will  take  a  close  second 
place.  It  is  essential  for  the  Church  to  hold 
itself  true  to  its  religious  foundations.  Only 
men  who  have  some  position  of  leadership  can 
realize  the  immense  pressure  that  is  on  to-day 
to  draw  the  Church  into  forms  of  activity  and 
methods  of  service  which  are  much  to  be  com- 
mended, but  which  have  to  be  constantly 
guarded  lest  they  deprive  it  of  power  and  con- 
cern in  the  things  which  are  peculiar  to  its  own 
life  and  which  it  and  it  alone  can  contribute  to 
the  public  good.  The  Church  needs  to  develop 
for  itself  far  better  methods  of  instruction  in 
the  Bible,  so  that  it  may  as  far  as  possible  drill 
those  who  come  under  its  influence  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  Bible  for  its  distinctive  religious 
value.  This  is  neither  the  time  nor  the  place 
for  a  full  statement  of  that  responsibility.  It  is 
enough  to  see  how  the  very  logic  of  the  life  of 

,      the  Church  requires  that  it  return  with  renewed 

1      energy  to  its  magnifying  and  teaching  of  the 

\     Bible. 
^    The  second  agency  which  may  be  called  upon 
is  the  press.      The  accent  of  the  press  will  be 
on  the  moral  value  of  the  Bible,  the  service  which 

280 


THE     GREATEST     ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

its  teaching  renders  to  the  national  and  personal 
life.     There   seems   to   be   a   hopeful   returning 
tendency  to  allusions  to  the  Scripture  in  news- 
paper and  magazine  publications.     It  is  rare  to 
find    among    the    higher-level    newspapers    an 
editorial  page,  where  the  most  thoughtful  writ- 
ing appears,  in  which  on  any  day  there  do  not 
appear  Scripture  allusions  or  references.     When 
that  is  seriously  done,  when  Scripture  is  used 
for  some  other  purpose  than  to  point  a  jest,  it 
helps  to  restore  the  Bible  to  its  place  in  public 
thought.     In    recent    years    there    has    been    a 
noticeable  return  of  the  greater  magazines  to 
consideration  of  the  moral  phases  of  the  Scrip- 
ture.    That  has  been  inevitably  connected  with 
the  development  of  a  social  sense  which  con- 
demns  men   for  their   evil   courses   because  of 
their  damage  to  society.     The  Old  Testament 
prophets  are  living  their  lives  again  in  these 
days,  and  the  more  thoughtful  men  are  being 
driven  back  to  them  for  the  great  principles  on 
which  they  may  live  safely, 
y    The  third  agency  which  needs  to  magnify  the 
Bible  is  the  school.     The  accent  which  it  will 
choose  will  naturally  be  the  literary  value  of  the 
Bible,   though   it   will   not   overlook   its   moral 
value  as  well.     Incidental  references  heretofore 
have  suggested  the  importance  of  religion  in  a 

281 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

democracy.  But  there  are  none  of  the  great 
I  branches  of  the  teaching  of  the  schools,  pubhc 
or  private,  which  do  not  involve  the  Bible.  It 
is  impossible  to  teach  history  fairly  and  fully 
without  a  frank  recognition  of  the  influence  of 
the  Bible.  Study  the  Reformation,  the  Puritan 
movement,  the  Pilgrim  journeys,  the  whole  of 
early  American  history !  We  can  leave  the  Bible 
out  only  by  trifling  with  the  facts.  Certainly 
literature  cannot  be  taught  without  it.  And  if  it 
is  the  purpose  of  the  schools  to  develop  character 
and  moral  life,  then  there  is  high  authority  for 
saying  that  the  Bible  ought  to  have  place. 

Forty  years  ago  Mr.  Huxley,  in  his  essay  on 
"The  School  Boards:  What  They  Can  Do,  and 
What  They  May  Do,"  laid  a  broad  foundation 
for  thinking  at  this  point,  and  his  words  bear 
quoting  at  some  length:  "I  have  always  been 
strongly  in  favor  of  secular  education,  in  the 
sense  of  education  without  theology;  but  I  must 
confess  I  have  been  no  less  seriously  perplexed  to 
know  by  what  practical  measures  the  religious 
feeling,  which  is  the  essential  basis  of  conduct, 
was  to  be  kept  up,  in  the  present  utterly  chaotic 
state  of  opinion  on  these  matters,  without  the 
use  of  the  Bible.  The  pagan  moralists  lack  life 
and  color,  and  even  the  noble  stoic,  Marcus 
Aurelius  Antoninus,  is  too  high  and  refined  for 

282 


THE    GREATEST  .  ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

an  ordinary  child.  Take  the  Bible  as  a  whole; 
make  the  severest  deductions  which  fair  criti- 
cism can  dictate  for  shortcomings  and  positive 
errors;  eliminate,  as  a  sensible  lay  teacher  would 
do  if  left  to  himself,  all  that  is  not  desirable 
for  children  to  occupy  themselves  with;  and  there 
still  remains  in  this  old  literature  a  vast  residuum 
of  moral  beauty  and  grandeur.  And  then  con- 
sider the  great  historical  fact  that,  for  three  cen- 
turies, this  Book  has  been  woven  into  the  life  of 
all  that  is  best  and  noblest  in  English  history; 
that  it  has  become  the  national  epic  of  Britain, 
and  is  as  familiar  to  noble  and  simple,  from 
John-o'-Groat's  House  to  Land's  End,  as  Dante 
and  Tasso  once  were  to  the  Italians;  that  it  is 
written  in  the  noblest  and  purest  English,  and 
abounds  in  exquisite  beauties  of  mere  literary 
form;  and,  finally,  that  it  forbids  the  veriest 
hind  who  never  left  his  village  to  be  ignorant 
of  the  existence  of  other  countries  and  other 
civihzations,  and  of  a  great  past,  stretching  back 
to  the  furthest  limits  of  the  oldest  nations  of  the 
world.  By  the  study  of  what  other  book  could 
children  be  so  much  humanized  and  made  to 
feel  that  each  figure  in  that  vast  historical  pro- 
cession fills,  like  themselves,  but  a  momentary 
space  in  the  interval  between  two  eternities; 
and  earns  the  blessings  or  the  curses  of  all  time, 

283 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

according  to  its  effort  to  do  good  and  hate  evil, 
even  as  they  also  are  earning  their  payment  for 
their  work?  On  the  whole,  then,  I  am  in  favor 
of  reading  the  Bible,  with  such  grammatical, 
geographical,  and  historical  explanations  by  a  lay 
teacher  as  may  be  needful,  with  rigid  exclusion 
of  any  further  theological  teaching  than  that  con- 
tained in  the  Bible  itself."  Mr.  Huxley  is  an  Eng- 
lishman, though,  as  Professor  Moulton  says,  "We 
divide  him  between  England  and  America."  But 
Professor  Moulton  himself  is  very  urgent  in  this 
.  /  same  matter.  If  the  classics  of  Greece  and  Rome 
^  are  in  the  nature  of  ancestral  literature,  an  equal 
position  belongs  to  the  literature  of  the  Bible. 
"If  our  intellect  and  imagination  have  been 
formed  by  Greece,  have  we  not  in  similar  fash- 
ion drawn  our  moral  and  emotional  training 
from  Hebrew  thought.^"  It  is  one  of  the  curi- 
osities of  our  civilization  that  we  are  content 
to  go  for  our  liberal  education  to  literatures 
which  morally  are  at  opposite  poles  from  our- 
selves; literatures  in  which  the  most  exalted 
tone  is  often  an  apotheosis  of  the  sensuous, 
which  degrade  divinity,  not  only  to  the  human 
level,  but  to  the  lowest  level  of  humanity.  "It 
is  surely  good  that  our  youth  during  the  formative 
period  should  have  displayed  to  them,  in  a  lite- 
rary dress  as  brilliant  as  that  of  Greek  literature, 

284 


THE     GREATEST.  ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

a  people  dominated  by  an  utter  passion  for 
righteousness,  a  people  whose  ideas  of  purity, 
of  infinite  good,  of  universal  order,  of  faith  in 
the  irresistible  downfall  of  moral  evil,  moved 
to  a  poetic  passion  as  fervid  and  speech  as 
musical  as  when  Sappho  sang  of  love  or  Eschylus 
thundered  his  deep  notes  of  destiny."^ 

But  there  is  a  leading  American  voice  which 
[/  will  speak  in  that  behalf,  in  President  Nicholas 
Murray  Butler,  of  Columbia  University.  In  his 
address  as  President  of  the  National  Educational 
Association,  President  Butler  makes  strong  plea 
for  the  reading  of  the  Bible  even  in  public  schools. 
"His  reason  had  no  connection  with  religion.  It 
was  based  on  altogether  different  ground.  He 
regarded  an  acquaintance  with  the  Bible  as  abso- 
lutely indispensable  to  the  proper  understanding 
of  English  literature."  It  is  unfortunate  in  the 
extreme,  he  thought,  that  so  many  young  men 
are  growing  up  without  that  knowledge  of  the 
Bible  which  every  one  must  have  if  he  means 
to  be  capable  of  the  greatest  literary  pleasure 
and  appreciation  of  the  literature  of  his  own 
people.  Not  only  the  allusions,  but  the  whole 
tone  and  bias  of  many  English  authors  will  be- 
come to  one  who  is  ignorant  of  the  Bible  most 
difficult  and  even  impossible  of  comprehension. 

*  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible,  passim. 
285 


y 


THE     GREATEST    ENGLISH     CLASSIC 

The  difficulties  of  calling  public  schools  to 
this  task  appear  at  once.  It  would  be  mon- 
strous if  they  should  be  sectarian  or  proselytiz- 
ing. But  the  Bible  is  not  a  sectarian  Book. 
It  is  the  Book  of  greatest  literature.  It  is  the 
Book  of  mightiest  morals.  It  is  governing  his- 
tory. It  is  affecting  literature  as  nothing  else 
has  done.  A  thousand  pities  that  any  petty 
squabbling  or  differences  of  opinion  should  pre- 
vent the  young  people  in  the  schools  from  realiz- 
ing the  grandeur  and  beauty  of  it! 

But  the  final  and  most  important  agency 
Ix;;  which  will  magnify  the  influence  of  the  Bible 
must  necessarily  be  the  home.  It  will  gather 
up  all  its  traits,  religious,  moral,  and  literary .1 
Here  is  the  fundamental  opportunity  and  the 
fundamental  obligation.  Robert  Burns  was  right 
in  finding  the  secret  of  Scotia's  power  in  such 
scenes  as  those  of  "The  Cottar's  Saturday  Night." 
One  can  almost  see  Carlyle  going  back  to  his 
old  home  at  Ecclefechan  and  standing  outside 
to  hear  his  old  mother  making  a  prayer  in  his 
behalf.  A  newspaper  editorial  of  recent  date 
says  this  decay  of  literary  allusion  is  traceable 
in  part  to  the  gradual  abandonment  of  family 
prayers.  Answering  President  Butler,  it  is 
urged  that  it  is  not  so  important  that  the  Bible 
be  in  the  public  schools  as  that  it  get  back  again 

286 


THE    GREATEST    ENGLISH    CLASSIC 

into  the  homes.  *' Thorough  acquaintance  with 
the  Bible  is  desirable;  it  should  be  fostered. 
The  person  who  will  have  to  foster  it,  though," 
says  this  writer,  "is  not  the  teacher,  but  the 
parent.  The  parent  is  the  person  whom  Dr. 
Butler  should  try  to  convert."  Well,  while 
there  may  be  differences  about  the  school,  there 
can  be  none  about  the  place  of  the  Bible  in  the 
home.  It  needs  to  be  bound  up  with  the  earliest 
impressions  and  intertwined  with  those  im- 
pressions as  they  deepen  and  extend. 

So,  by  the  Church,  which  will  accent  its  re- 
ligious value;  by  the  press,  which  will  accent  its 
moral  power;  by  the  school,  which  will  spread 
its  literary  influence;  and  by  the  home,  which 
will  realize  all  three  and  make  it  seem  a  vital 
concern  from  the  beginning  of  life,  the  Bible 
will  be  put  and  held  in  the  place  of  power  to-day 
which  it  has  had  in  the  years  that  are  gone,  and 
will  steadily  gain  greater  power. 


THE   END 


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